


somewhere I have never travelled

by fundamentalBlue



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alpha Steve Rogers, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Angst, Civil War Fix-It, Identity Porn, M/M, Omega Tony Stark, cliffhanger ending, eventually, smut in chapter 5, will be resolved in sequel!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-23
Updated: 2020-07-23
Packaged: 2021-03-04 21:08:01
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 42,612
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25432873
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fundamentalBlue/pseuds/fundamentalBlue
Summary: If he had regrets, they were unspoken rants at treacherous mother nature for having designed the plumbing in the first place.The suppressants would harm his fertility at this rate, but Tony wasn’t sure that was a bad thing since he wasn’t going to live to see the possibility of children. It would be about a year or more before the inflammation from a heat spent alone killed him, anyway.
Relationships: Steve Rogers/Tony Stark
Comments: 48
Kudos: 148
Collections: Stony*





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> THIS FIC IS COMPLETE. It has a sequel, just in case you guys are mad at me for the ending. I will post every Wednesday. I promise smut is in this. 
> 
> \------  
> I am shamelessly pilfering jokes from funny shows and writing, such as Veep, McSweeney internet tendency, James Mickens, etc. I think a lot of these embody what I see as Tony’s sense of humor, and since I am very unfunny in writing, I’m not sure what else to do to compensate in developing Tony’s character. 
> 
> Mating bites exist, but the Omega has to give the bite back in order to seal the deal. Yes, Yinsen shared Tony’s heat as a fellow captive, and it was as consensual as a situation like that could be. It is only mentioned. The scenes with Tony and Steve are also dubious consent. I consider all A/B/O interactions to be on dubious consent grounds because of the biological imperative to breed subsuming an individual’s inclinations. 
> 
> Songs I listened to for this fic: 
> 
> Pedestrian at Best - Courtney Barnett  
> Emotions and Math - Margaret Glaspy  
> Emily - San Fermin  
> If U C My Enemies - Rubblebucket  
> Real Love - Father John Misty  
> Armour - TENDER  
> Runner - Tennis  
> How to Forgive - Tennis  
> I saw you in a dream - The Japanese House  
> Fine Line - Harry Styles  
> I Follow Rivers - Lykke Li  
> Best to You - Blood Orange

_“Been a while since I was up here in front of you. Maybe I’ll do us all a favour and just stick to the cards. There’s been speculation that I was somehow involved in the events that occurred on the freeway and on the rooftop—”_

_“Sorry, Mr Stark, do you honestly expect us to believe that that was an Alpha bodyguard in a suit, that conveniently appeared despite the fact that you historically despise bodyguards?_

_”Yes.”_

_“And this mysterious Alpha was somehow equipped with an undisclosed Stark high-tech powered battle—”_

_“I know that it’s confusing. It is one thing to question the official story and another thing entirely to make wild accusations, or insinuate that I’m uh, a superhero._

_“I mean, let’s face it, I’m not the heroic type. A laundry list of character defects, all the mistakes I’ve made, largely public. Though my designation wouldn’t preclude me, if anything. The truth is—_

_“I am not Iron Man. I chose an Alpha for PR. Apparently we’re all still so offended by being saved by an Omega, so I decided to give the general public this one, just this time. So yes, I’ve hired someone to pilot the suit. No, they’re not my bodyguard, they’re yours, against any and all threats.”_  
\----

“Are you sure this meeting is right? 8 am?” There were mornings, and then there was Pepper, bright and early at post-sunrise o’clock. His groan into the phone would have been theatrical but for the fact that he’d only gone to bed, no, sleep, a few hours ago. Maybe. 

There was so little time left and far too many projects to do. 

The soft click of the automatic lights when he moved had him closing his eyes to press back the burning sensation of only having shut them not that long ago. Even blinking hurt. 

“Am I sure?” Pepper deadpanned. 

“Okay, okay I’m sorry. I can feel you staring at me through the phone. Hopefully undressing me with your eyes, although maybe not.” Tony cringed as he lifted a hand off of a Camloc Drill Jig, dropping several screws that had plastered to his arm in the process. He was going to be stomping on tiny pieces of metal for days. Unless… an air-core magnet attached to Dum-E could do the trick. It was overkill compared to an electromagnet, but he didn’t want to deal with frequency-dependent loss when he could simply circumvent it. To build it small enough, he’d have to—

“Tony?” And ok, he’d drifted for a second there. He’d rather be in a board meeting getting the side eye from accounting for wearing sweat pants again. Pepper knew he did everything he could to avoid mornings, but it was also the best time to get him to agree to things. 

“Pep?” 

“Meet with them. Fifteen minutes, that’s all.” Matchmaker, matchmaker, make me a match, Tony thought. If he could keep choosing suppressants as his one-and-only, he would. They don’t steal the covers and not text you back. And like an NDA was going to keep an Alpha from bragging about being with Tony. It seemed everyone knew about Tony’s sex life but Tony, anyway. 

Truly, he thought he’d flown the coop on evolution. Designations didn’t, shouldn’t, matter, and even then the worst offenders were muzzled by political correctness. Discrimination happened institutionally, but not to people like Tony. It made his decision to not tell everyone he was Iron Man that much more difficult. Yet he couldn’t deny that while the people who had attempted to bend Tony to their will were either incapable, or dead, if the military put their mind to it, Tony was certain they’d find a way. They’d find out about his little situation with heats through basic sleuthing. And if they did, Tony wouldn’t put it past them to regulate their way into his bed. He could take suppressants for only so long, and the timing for publicly and privately available suppressants were well documented. Frankly he wasn’t sure exactly what they would do, but he didn’t want to find out before getting the rest of his house in order. 

Once he found a way around needing to go into heat, he’d tell the world that Iron Man was, and had always been an Omega. 

“You’d think that people who get up to helping us designated deviants hump it out would do this over drinks and dinner. Is this an ambush, Pepper? A forced meet cute where I’m expected to be overwhelmed by the amazing scent of coffee and dick?” There was also the tiny, insignificant problem that he was dying. Yet, he didn’t feel guilty in the slightest that his bucket list did not include enacting a tragic harlequin novel by spending his last heat with the perfect Alpha. The end of the story would not be magical, containing a healing dick that abruptly rid him of palladium poisoning. Best to let Pepper have this though, he knew. 

“There won’t be an Alpha in sight. It’s in the rather extensive contract I had them sign just to step through our doors. There’ll be more contracts if you have any success with the scents.” Pepper bypassed his joke completely, which was speaking to how serious she thought this whole thing was. 

And it was, but it wasn’t. 

The suppressants would harm his fertility at this rate, but Tony wasn’t sure that was a bad thing since he wasn’t going to live to see the possibility of children. It would be about a year or more before the inflammation from a heat spent alone killed him. By then he’d be dead. 

However, if he’d never gone into heat at all, never been kidnapped and held in Afghanistan, he wouldn’t be here, spending the last of his time with Pepper like this. He’d have figured out his heat situation a long time ago. 

If he had regrets, they were unspoken rants at treacherous mother nature for having designed the plumbing in the first place. 

Because it was Murphy's law that Tony had met thousands of people, and not once had he gotten more than a whiff of someone interesting. If there was someone, anyone, who was compatible, the person he’d go classic Omega for, they didn’t exist, except as a biological backpack filled with instinct-bricks that he was forced to carry around every day. And Tony didn’t do instinct. The little voice of instinct in his head whispering alpha, alpha, alpha, was a lying liar who lies. 

No, the person that appealed the most, just happened to be his erstwhile assistant, now CEO. And it wasn’t her scent or her biology. It was the way she was protective of him. How she fought her instinct to wash her hands of the mess with Iron Man and stayed by his side through the many mistakes he’d made. 

Also, he really did love an Omega in power, including himself. She was the someone he could see being with, weathering this crazy world together. Pride was a funny thing, however, and he wasn’t about to burden her with his awkward feelies. Not while she had a company to help run.

“I’m fine being an old Omega harridan with cats, except instead of cats, robots. It’s a perfectly acceptable life choice, given that robots don’t even shit in a box. No offense, JARVIS.”

“None taken, sir.” Not that JARVIS didn’t have his own Opinions. For every harridan’s origin story, there was a haranguing mother-type lurking in their past. His just happened to be the person in charge of his life and an AI. JARVIS was forbidden from saying anything about Tony’s situation to anyone else, but he gave an earful to Tony when he could. At least until Tony threatened to mix him with concrete and render him inert. 

“I know you, and I know that’s not as true as you want it to be Tony. Please, just try.” She was going to be so disappointed in Tony when she found out about everything. Tony was already disappointed in Tony. Not Howard Stark levels of disappointed, but getting there with every failed effort he’d made thus far to replace the palladium in the arc reactor that resulted in a tantrum Tony couldn’t explain to her. He couldn’t tell her why he acted out. He couldn’t tell her he was dying. He couldn’t tell her that his genius, the only thing that felt like his, and not his designation, had failed him. 

Tony rubbed gently at his chest, the dark veins he’d seen in the mirror firm and ribbed under his touch, but moved his hand away quickly. If he didn’t watch out, it’d become a habit. 

“Fine.” It was long, and drawn out, but he was acquiescing. If only for Pepper. And how it suited his natural inclination towards self destruction.

“Now the trial, Tony, do not go antagonizing the military industrial complex. Can you do that?” Pepper sounded desperate, and Tony didn’t really know why. If all else fails, he can blow up the suit and live in a van down by the river. Or an island. 

“I won’t antagonize them if they don’t go on about how they need the Iron Man suit for things like ‘peace’ and ‘deterrents.’ They plan to weaponize my armor—” And that was the crux of the matter. In the minds of the military, humanity is nearing a final, glorious stage of Darwinian evolution, in which mankind and guns emerge from a shared chrysalis, unconstrained by conventional morality. Nevermind the “free guns for me, but not for thee” approach always seemed to backfire. 

“Tony—”

“Look, how can you have a peaceful military industrial complex? Well, it may be difficult if you can’t trust anything the military does and the entire concept of weapons buying peace is a lie created by unseen overlords of endless deceptive power. Usually I never have to say the last part, but everybody understands what’s happening.” Tony wondered if Obie would have been charged for kidnapping, with all the contracts he ensured were fulfilled. They’d probably treat him the way the catholic church treats pedophiles: pay everyone to shut up and shuffle onto the next company where he can underhandedly sell guns to terrorists again, justifying the use of extreme force and superior weaponry from, you guessed it, the military. 

“Ok, well if you’re going to be you, do it well, then. Don’t give them room to complain, and don’t complain to me when it explodes in your face.” He wasn’t worried, because he was going to verbally hog-tie Stern and any witnesses he called to the stand, and not in the fun way. 

“Hey, I resent that. I’ve come to realize that I have more to offer this world than just making things that blow up. But if Stern wants to be a weapons-grade moron and try to take my suit from me, I’ll let my dumpster fire of a personality take care of it.” Tony examined the grease on his nails, musing that he’d have to actually clean up for this one. People wore makeup, so why couldn’t Tony use iron tannins as eye shadow? Though truth be told, he was going to infuriate the Congressional Panel by dressing more to alpha standard than omega. Suit and tie all day ‘er day. 

“I can’t stop you. But just remember this country is a democracy, Tony. If Stern has enough people in his pocket for a vote, which I don’t think he does, but if he does, you could be looking at being forced to give them possession of the suit!” Stern’s pockets were big, but not that big. There was only so much money in the world, and Tony had a lot of it. It wasn’t a sure thing, legally keeping the suit, but he had better than Vegas odds. Illegally? If it came down to it, he’d make his tech useless before they stole it. 

“Democracy is fantastic Pep, but it’s also fucking dull, and corrupt. Didn’t you buy the rest of the people not in Stern’s high school clique?” Stern wasn’t even the ultimate Mean Girl. That award went to General Ross. The man had a perpetual boner for any supers, if his obsession with Dr. Banner was anything to go by. 

“We have contracts for production of armor and vehicles, not bribes! Now, that whole thing with Christine Everhart?” 

“Bribes schmibes. What about Christine? One tiny disagreement and everyone’s making it out like we had a cat fight in the press room! She’d be a tough fighter. I don’t think she wears shoulder pads, at least.” He should have never invited her over that one time. Nope. Not ever. But he’d been on schedule for his monthly hook-up with another omega to prove—well, that Tony Stark wasn’t constrained. That he was enough. And more. Something his father had told him he’d never understand. 

Alphas were certain in their identity, privileged. And the more Howard had attempted to squeeze and press Tony into an Omegan identity, the more Tony had decided the boundaries of that designation didn't matter. Tony’s lack of concern about mating had Howard begrudgingly bequeathing the company to him. At least Howard could acknowledge that Tony acted more like an Alpha than an Omega, which, while it resulted in slightly better treatment, it rankled his belief that Omegas were just as good, if not better, than Alphas. 

“No fisticuffs with journalists Tony. Not even verbal. Don’t give them a reason.” Like they needed one. The press hounded him, especially about how his supposed Omegan tendencies made him unqualified to run a company. They didn’t come out and say it anymore, most days. But given the chance, they’d be picking through his garbage like trash pandas, looking for slick-stained sheets and heat-toys. Things Tony took great legal care to burn when he had to go off suppressants for his very lonely heats. 

“And you don’t even like her Pep! Look, I kept Iron Man safe, Pepper. And I’d lie again to Christine and Stern if I had to, that’s all that matters.” 

“Stern is going to serve you a subpoena soon. So if you lie, just don’t do it under oath Tony, please?” He knew what Ross and Stern thought of him, and like he gave a flying fuck. Those two were windbags who liked the sound of their own voice and the possibility of selling someone's, anyone’s, grandmother for some bullets, including their own. They didn’t know how to ask the right questions, nor would they ever presume to care who piloted the suit so long as they got their literally bloody hands on it. 

“Ok, ok, now, the new Armani or the Gucci?” If they wanted a show, they would get one. 

\--

 _Iron Man unfurls from its crouch with a liquid grace that had taken hours of JARVIS consuming videos of Tony walking around the house in the suit before the AI could imitate Tony’s showmanship. The crowd of Stark Expo is a sea of all different designations, and Tony can swear their scents are being squished out of them by all the milling bodies pressed together just for a clear glimpse of Iron Man. What a time to be alive when the congregation of so many designations would have caused a riot or an orgy, but for Stark Industry’s crowd control tech that neutralized pheromones. He can feel scents tingling in his nose, but doesn’t have the overwhelming Omegan-instinctual fear to_ run.

_Instead he stands in the background waiting for the ridiculous dance routine to finish, the one that Tony swore to the PR team was never going to make people forget that he was an Omega, not an Alpha. Not like Iron Man._

_“You guys miss Iron Man?” The crowd roars its approval as Iron Man waves this way and that, a robotic version of Captain America._

_“Now I’m not saying that the world is enjoying its longest period of uninterrupted peace in years because of me. I’m not saying that from the ashes of captivity, I’ve created a phoenix personified. I’m not saying that Uncle Sam can kick back on a lawn chair, sipping on an iced tea because I haven’t come across anyone who’s man enough to go toe-to-toe with Iron Man on our best day.” He can’t resist walking in front of the suit, reminding, teasing, that Iron Man is the property and creation of Tony Stark. Tony knows the military has been crying into their outdated Stark weaponry over the fact that Omegas have things like “rights” and “property.”_

_“I love you Iron Man!” It almost felt like they were saying his name._

_“Please, it’s not about me. It’s not about you. It’s not even about us. It’s about legacy. It’s about what we choose to leave behind for future generations. And that’s why for the next year and for the first time since 1974, the best and brightest men and women of nations and corporations the world over will pool their resources, share their collective vision, to leave behind a brighter future. It’s not about us. Therefore, what I’m saying, if I’m saying anything, is welcome back to the Stark Expo. And now, making a special guest appearance from the great beyond to tell you what it’s all about, please welcome my father, Howard.”_

_Later when he’s served his subpoena, his expression is one lacking in concern, but underneath is a malicious glee that bubbles up from the same place he can feel his imminent death. There are ways to go out, and there are_ ways to go out. 

\--

Tony’s drunk when the screw-crew files in. It’s in the evening, a sweet little dinner date in Stark Tower. And Pepper wasn’t here. But this super-accountant beta was, with his beta spokesperson, and their token Omega. Wrapped in neat little packages were white cloths, seemingly sterile, but truthfully covered in the groin sweat of alphas. And yeah, the sex-ccountant said it had just been a basic swipe over the glands, but come on, if given the chance, alphas rubbed their balls on anything and everything. 

Tony is sweating, the booze pouring off his skin in the way it does when you marathon drink and then take a short break to catch your breath. He thinks they notice, but he doesn’t really care. 

Instead he takes a swig of the newly designed shake that JARVIS had researched to help with the poison. It’s a variant of something called the “master cleanse,” and it tastes worse than Dum-E’s usual as he holds it in from spraying the faces of the people around him while he begrudgingly swallows. 

“The results of your personality test matched you with service Alphas category. I’ll admit, initial—more topical—assessments would have put you in the Omegan impudent category, and thus the more dominant Alpha, but as it turns out—” sex-ccountant clearly had deeply personal feelings on Tony’s image, and as the beta droned on, paging through the fuck-boring paperwork that contained more about Tony than he would ever reasonably allow to stay in their hands, Tony felt the soft sting of the drunken surreal becoming reality. 

He was methodically pursuing an Alpha for heat. Not dating, or asking around, or even soliciting a friend. And if that wasn’t the bee in his iron bonnet, because after this heat, there’d be another heat. The type of inflammation Tony had due to avoiding his heats wouldn’t be cured with a single heat. He needed some therapeutic fucking. Presumably his next heat would be with this same Alpha if he couldn’t find a second one to avoid the first Alpha thinking he had a claim to anything. 

But these were all tomorrow’s problems anyway, and Tony just loved kicking cans. 

Speaking of designations, Tony knew why they brought the Omega in. Omegas had bonding pheromones that engendered affection and provided group calming effects. She probably thought they were going to have a slumber party together, do their nails, and talk knots. 

God, Tony just wanted to lay on the table, lay his hands down flat and press his face to the cool surface, and forget his impending hangover. But the Omega was right there, in the way and blocking him from relief with her thin, tan arms. 

“I’ve had such luck with this program, honestly. All my heats have been so professionally handled.” The Omega splayed her fingers out in attempted commiseration at the sorry state of the market for top-shelf bondmates. She was finely dressed, clean lines in the designer clothing she wore. Understated, poised. The kind of balanced where ten people who met her the same day would give different descriptions of her personality. Tony knew what that was like. Being a chameleon. 

“Luck doesn’t have anything to do with it. This is a numbers game, sweetheart. And while the numbers have always favored me—love me some math, you know—I’ve scented more people than you’ve met. And I have an extensive distrust of institutions that measure compatibility via personality tests.” Some personality tests worked, it was true. And he wasn’t about to admit that they’d mostly pegged him, but for his occasional need to be chased and dominated. Sometimes controlling trauma was a matter of repeating the same incidents, but this time, with victory on the mind. He tried not to think of Yinsen; the Alpha’s gentle hands haunted a place in his mind he never wanted to go back to, but lingered like a ghost in the hallway anyway.

“It’s a very good thing then, that it’s just a few nights. Most aren’t worth keeping around, it’s true.” She said, demur, but with a certain kind of temerity when it came to admitting the product was flawed. Tony agreed: Alphas were cancelled. 

“—If you’ll sign here, agreeing that Arcelon owns the data—”

“Excuse me, what? No, no, no. You own nothing. After this is done, I wipe your servers and burn those papers. This isn’t my first rodeo on privacy, thank you very much.” The fuck they thought? The last time he’d had private information sold about him, was when he’d been seventeen. He’d given an interview without Howard’s permission, and yes, he’d paid for it on both ends, but at the time it had felt like a win against Howard’s iron grip. 

“Mr. Stark, there’s protocol—” The Omega woman did a quick pump of calming pheromones that were noticeably potent, but wouldn’t work on Tony that easily. He’d known she wasn’t just a pretty face, but it took special talent to issue soothing scents on command when a situation had gotten stressful. He wouldn’t be surprised if she was also the Alpha recruiter. 

“Rules are made to be broken, by me, not you. Not Beth in operations who has a little crush and a hankering for HIPAA violations.” 

“We have the most stringent security protocol, developed by SI, so there’s no reason to believe there will be a breach.” Beta number two said. 

“And you think I gave up all the goods to my company? Oh no, the best security is one that isn’t on the general market. Look, I’m going to just get started, and prove right now that I don’t even need to sign a thing.” Tony grabbed the first package and tore it open. It hit the edge of the table and tumbled down like dirty laundry. The scent of sour yogurt permeated the room. 

Next was a brine-y flavor with a tinge of dead fish; the Alpha probably thought he smelled like the ocean. Then rotting wood in the forest. Fruit Loops. My god, an Alpha was out there, right now, walking around smelling like a cereal box. 

Nothing, nada. He’d gone through twenty shirts in two minutes. Plastic and t-shirts littered the table, and as he got up, he hoped that his people wouldn’t be left cleaning up this tragic mess. It smelled like those times in college, where they’d combine condiments with ramen to see if it tasted good. Hardly surprising that it never worked. 

“See? Done. No signature, no problem, thank you for your time and goodbye.” He stalked out, snatching the stack of papers that contained more information than the average person’s facebook, ready to face the wrath of his assistant. 

\--

“And what did you think of the scents?” Besides Cereal-man, they were mind-numbingly boring. He could smell how milquetoast all of the Alphas were. Eau de bourgeois.

“They were mediocre, of all the -ocres, they were the medi-est.” Yesterday had been a hassle with the meeting. A waste of time, when he had so little. The space between each pill of the suppressants he needed to take was ever-shrinking. In testing the new suppressants he’d been working on when his arc reactor research hit a brick wall, Tony had given himself another month or two before he would have to dose high enough to permanently damage his uterus. Maybe he could take the damn thing out, but even without the uterus, that still left him with heats. Unlike beta biology, removing reproductive organs of Omegas didn’t stop their heats. They dampened them, but Omegas were doomed to have to spend at least a heat a year with an alpha to maintain adequate health. 

Before Afghanistan, it’d been about fifteen years for Tony. He could acknowledge that maybe that hadn’t been the right play. Now, he couldn’t put his body off for much longer. 

A little cognitive dissonance or willful ignorance of the facts when he was young? Sure. Six of one, half dozen of the other. 

“I’d say beggars can’t be choosers, but…” Pepper trailed off. 

“So I don’t have to go off suppressants, right? Right?” Yeah, he already knew the answer, but it did seem like they were out of options to give him more time, besides the nuclear one, which involved scalpels and a sympathetic doctor who wouldn’t look too closely at all the black lines spiraling out from the center of his chest. If he could get his uterus out, it would buy him another six months. Healing would be slow, but Tony’s life goals didn’t, hadn’t ever, involved finding a compatible Alpha anyway. Children were yuck, and the Iron Man suit didn’t come in maternity sizes. 

“Natalie mentioned that there’s another service she uses for heats. It’s more government officials than anything else. Very private, and they would accommodate hiding your identity as Iron Man.” There was something about Natalie, like how eerily good at her job she was. It had taken forever for Tony to find Pepper, and then a second, preternaturally good Omega assistant crops up? Tony didn’t really believe in coincidences like that anymore. But so far, topically, her identity had been clean. He’d been meaning to do more than a facebook stalk for some time now, but you know, _dying._

“Okay, one, that involves telling a secretive heat service, well, a secret, which isn’t secret if you tell anyone, and two, how in the hell does spit swapping now include not knowing whose spit you’re swallowing? What, am I going to wear the Iron Man helmet and a long sleeve shirt to cover the reactor? I’ll look like I’m really bad at cosplay!” Well this wasn’t happening. He could imagine right now just how hot a moan coming from his voice modulator would be, like a cyborg cat in heat. 

He outright giggled into the silence of the phone. 

Oh. Oh, she was serious. 

“No, Pepper, no, I’m not— no.” 

“It wouldn’t be the helmet Tony—”

“—shocked and upset that there’s government officials masquerading about while they plow each other secretly—”

“—it’s not like that—”

“—it’s exactly like that, and you know, I’ve seen this movie before. Omega infiltrates Alpha-frat society, and there’s masks, sex, and crime, and someone gets hurt, and it’s always the Omega, Pepper. If I know anything at all, it’s pop culture!” Also, the thought of someone like Senator Stern having even the remotest chance of scenting Tony made his ovaries want to shrivel up and die. 

“I won’t let you do this to yourself. I won’t Tony. Just try them, please.” Pepper said softly. In a morbid way, his heat issues were good cover for his other problems. Because Pepper begging him for his own life cut far too close to home. 

“You’re being serious right now. I can hear the serious face in your voice. This is, god, this is the worst thing to have happened, ever. Worse than finding out Santa isn’t real, maybe Hitler even.” He wanted to tell Pepper, he really did, but her steadfast determination to help him through this part of his life held him back. He wanted to give her this, even if it was an abhorrently bad idea to plan for something that was never going to happen. 

“And if you find someone you like enough to spend your heat with, you won’t regret it.” Tony sucked in a sharp breath, trying so very hard not to begrudge Pepper’s satisfaction with Happy, a calm Alpha who saw Pep through her heats that Tony hadn’t scented as being all that compatible, but damn if he didn’t wish that were the case. Happy smelled like warm blankets and breakfast food. 

If only Tony ate breakfast. 

\--  
_  
Tony made a move to straighten his tie, but stopped himself when he remembered how Pepper had fussed over it already. He hated yellow. He had to talk to Pepper, remind her that—_

_“Mr. Stark, could we pick up now where we left off? Mr. Stark. Please.” Tony turned around, a boy caught tugging on the pigtails of the girl he liked._

_“Yes dear?” Condescension from a man they had no control over, especially an Omega, rattled the cage bars of politicians and military men alike, who tended to be Alpha. Stern was one, and while he wouldn’t dare use his Alpha voice in public, the threat of it was a dull thrum in his tone._

_“Can I have your attention?” Stern said._

_“Absolutely.” He could look at Stern’s punchable face and think about smashing it for at least two minutes before the urge overwhelmed him, and he had to look away, because assaulting a sitting Senator was a PR nightmare that Pepper would disown him for._

_Tony and Stern went back and forth. Iron Man wasn’t a weapon; it’s a prosthesis. Stern disagreed, vehemently. Which, Stern’s plan was never for the benefit of the people in this country, but the institutions that run it. Aka the military and what money an institution like that could put into Stern’s pockets._

_“Well you can forget it. The suit is my property, and it’s operated by someone qualified to do so,” which was Tony, and thus not a lie in the eyes of the law, “and it requires extensive maintenance to function. If I turn over that suit, I’m indentured as a servant or prostitute, depending on what state you’re in. You can’t have it, or me.”_

_“Look, I’m no expert—”_

_“In prostitution? Of course not. You’re a senator. Come on.”_

_“I’m no expert in weapons. We have somebody here who is an expert on weapons. I’d now like to call Justin Hammer, our current primary weapons contractor.” Stern’s very being pressed the idea down on Tony, and he had a moment of doubt about whether it was what they said it was, a weapon, before his brain caught up and reminded him it didn’t matter. What mattered, was that in what America considered insignificant, enclaves of people in the desert were dying because of. That Americans, armed with his weapons, had fought against people armed with, again, his weapons. That’s what mattered. If he gave it over, eventually the suit would make its way to some Hammer wannabe, or even Hammer himself. Technology always did._

_But that they called Hammer, was a riot. The man had gone as far as to use Alpha voice ‘on accident’ in meetings with Tony. Tony wasn’t completely unresponsive either, but he’d managed to keep his reaction under wraps. Too bad for Justin that Tony’s biology didn’t like the man, because Tony’s desired reaction had been to leap across the table and tear at Justin’s face for attempting to use Alpha-tone on him. As a person, Justin was despicable. To use his designation as an Alpha to coerce in business, made him criminal in behavior. Tony could have had the man strung up on harassment charges, but if Justin had succeeded in commandeering Tony even for a moment, somehow, someway, Tony would have been found unfit to be CEO of SI. Let’s just say Tony had self-control over Alphas in the bag. And so, he let the incident slide, because there was no winning in the court of public opinion._

_He didn’t regret it now. Hammer as the military’s weapons contractor was a boon for the rest of the world. The weapons distributed didn’t function well enough to commit war consistently. Another Gulmira wasn’t possible at this point. Even in a year’s time, Hammer had nothing like the Jericho on hand._

_“Let the record reflect that I observed Mr. Hammer entering the chamber, and I am wondering if and when any actual expert will also be in attendance.” Tony was left waiting for Hammer to be over. And he was soon enough, right before Stern pulled his trump card._

_“That is well said Mr. Hammer. The committee would now like to invite Lieutenant Colonel James Rhodes to the chamber.” He didn’t know why he didn’t think of Rhodey being here. Of the fact that his friend was in the military, and beholden to a set of rigid rules Tony found beguiling. What he really wanted now, was to release extraordinary and significant profanities in court record for being caught flat footed._

_Tony watched as Rhodey tried in vain to recite his report in its entirety, or at least a balanced view of it. Tony could have told him they would take his words and twist them, but there were things happening in the background that Tony could barely see. Stern had his votes and the president lined up. He had Rhodey corralled. God, there were so many happenings that Tony’s only chance was a public appeal for incompetency and property theft on the part of the government. The conservatives loved hearing about the former, and hated the latter, especially when it was guns._

_When they showed the videos of attempts at making a similar suit, Tony seized on the moment. He jacked the feed, played all the videos he could find, including Hammer’s ill-fated attempts that made dying look like a desirable outcome, if being in the suit were any indication._

_“I’d like to point out the test pilot survived.” Hammer said._

_Stern spluttered for a moment before recovering and trying to move past the scathing effect of the videos. It was too late, of course. Tony had proven that no one had his tech, and so the threat of outside nations gunning for the United States was a moot point._

_“Listen: I understand why you want the suit. I’m not saying that other kinds of weapons manufacturers are useless. I believe, but cannot prove, that Justin Hammer has a soul and the capacity to make guns. I am like the Statue of Liberty: I accept everyone has the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, even the wretched and the huddled, and people like Tiberius Stone. But when things get tough, America needs mission-critical people; a person who can wear night-vision goggles and descend from the sky and do classified things to protect your freedom while country music plays in the background. That person is Iron Man. And in the hands of the US Military, the suit wouldn’t be able to adequately protect a bald eagle. Also, again, the suit is mine, not yours, and we don’t steal from the other kids just because we want what they’re playing with. So the point is, you’re welcome, I guess.”_

_“For what?” Stern looked boggled._

_“Because I’m your nuclear deterrent. It’s working. We’re safe. America is secure. You want my property? You can’t have it. But I did you a big favor. I’ve successfully privatised world peace. What more do you want? For now! I tried to play ball with these ass-clowns.” Tony gestured at the panel before turning to walk out._

_Seeing Stern lose his composure was satiating Tony’s desire to bring ruin to the things that Stern loved. Maybe because he already had when he pulled Stark weapons out of the military’s hands in the first place._

\--

Forgiveness was a fickle thing. It’s like Tony’s head was broken in half. Rhodey took the suit, on his birthday of all things. He should have taken the suit to protect them after Tony was gone. But it was Tony’s suit. Rhodey shouldn’t have taken the suit. He could have stopped him, and that’s what he didn’t want to admit. 

He pressed the button again, just to feel something as he looked at the toxicity levels in his blood, to know that he was closer to death after wearing the Iron Man suit for probably not the last time, but one of the last. Heck, he could die in the thing if he wanted. The Iron Ghost in a metal coffin.

He only cared on the pettiest level that the government had the suit. What were they going to do? Attach pistols to its legs like that grindhouse movie?

What they couldn’t do, is reverse engineer the code or the reactor, especially. Except Vanko. He probably could have. 

Vanko, whose father, fairly or unfairly, his own father had deported. 

Tony clutched his head, the dull ache of the poison doing what it did best. Ache. Combined with the feverish warmth of pre-heat that rippled across his skin and a whopping hangover, he didn’t feel connected to the world. Like Rhodey’s actions didn’t matter. Nothing mattered. However Rhodey attained the suit, it was best he had it. 

He was still going to have to get him back though for crashing his birthday party that had mostly been filled with people he couldn’t give a rat’s ass about. Hashtag Let Iron Man Pee. It had been an urgent mystery that wasn’t going to solve itself! Yet the look on Pepper’s face as he made a fool of himself, of Iron Man, in front of a crowd of coked up strangers wasn’t leaving his brain. Granted, Tony had spent some time out of the suit, to give credence to the narrative that he wasn’t Iron Man. But it was too opportune to not give himself a little present in the form of pretending, just for a moment, that everyone was in on his little secret. 

The alcohol delivery system he’d rigged together so he didn’t have to remove his mask seemed childish now. Tony wondered why he didn’t just out himself sometimes, but his thoughts always circled back to designation. Omegas were fickle, emotional, flighty creatures with furnished souls. 

Tony defied that, and it almost cost him SI. He didn’t want it to cost him Iron Man. 

But sitting in a pit of self loathing wasn’t doing much, and he only allotted five minutes a day to think about his inevitable doom. 

Doughnuts. Doughnuts were going to deus ex machina him out of an unhappiness spiral. 

Which is how he found himself sitting in a giant fiberglass doughnut, scheming how to eat doughnuts in public as Iron Man. 

Tony felt an immediate, unshakeable sense of sadness. Kind of like when you realize that bad things can happen to good people, or that Steve Jobs will almost certainly make more money than him over arbitrary time scales. He could not both protect his identity, and eat doughnuts at the same time. 

“Sir, I’m going to have to ask you to exit the doughnut.” The man below him looked like he never outgrew his goth phase in high school. Despite the wardrobe, the man looked like the kind of person the government pays to do Very Bad Things. With the man’s one glaring eye, Tony can imagine a little drawer of identical eye patches, lined up with military precision. 

“Make me.” Which, after he says it, Tony is sure that this man could, given the first class glare he’s receiving. In a robotically voiced huff, Tony dismounts the doughnut and goes to meet what is surely another attempt by Stern to commander the armor. 

Later, when they’re in the restaurant, and Director Fury of SHIELD is staring across at him after explaining the Avengers Initiative, Tony really regrets not being able to have a doughnut. Or god, a coffee. Caffeine helped the blood flow, which could be a good or bad thing. 

“Ok, I don’t want to join your super secret boy band, and nor does Mr. Stark. If I have to associate with people, the likelihood of my survival is directly related to the size and quality of my rag-tag group of associates. Are you a welder, Fury? Maybe a lock-picker? A snake-thrower who can throw snakes at my enemies? No? Well then, I’m not sure you can help me.” He’d heard of SHIELD. They’d ghosted about the perimeters of his life, but he’d never done anything naughty enough to warrant their attention. Besides Iron Man, apparently. And to be fair to Fury and his little Avenger’s initiative, a SHIELD agent would know what to do if the world broke down, because a SHIELD agent already lives in a world without law anyway. They’d seized property before, just never his. But Tony wasn’t interested in making it easy. SHIELD would inevitably want what all bloated, militaristic intelligence agencies wanted: weapons. And when they came for them, Tony would slap them with so much lawyer-y paperwork, their little agent heads would spin like the exorcist chick. 

“Ah, I remember you do everything yourself, except for pilot the Iron Man suit. How’s that working out for you?” As Fury side-stepped Tony’s interrogation with his bold declaration, Tony knew the other man knew his identity and maybe that he was dying. Fury knew, Tony knew he knew, and Fury knew that Tony knew that he knew. If he weren’t so tired, he’d be furious. As it is, he’s reflexively defensive. 

“And isn’t SHIELD secret, as in shut the fuck up? Also your secretive purpose is for homeland security. Do I look like Captain fucking America over here? You cannot Enforce and Logistics my identity out of me, Fury.” The Director stared him down with hands clasped as if waiting for Tony’s attitude to abate. The Mark V has an air filtration system for its air filtration system. Which was great, because he could both not smell his own panic and knew Director Fury couldn’t as well. 

“You know what? I’m sorry, I don’t want to get off on the wrong foot. Do I look at the patch or the eye. I’m gonna say I’m a bit hungover, I’m not sure if you’re real, or if—” Tony said. 

“I am very real. I’m the real-est person you’re ever gonna meet. The question is, are you real?” Fury leaned forward as he spoke, so certain of his existence as a persistent thing. If Tony didn’t have the only AI in the world, he could have sworn that the Director was a type of AI himself. Creepy and all-knowing.

“It’s none of your business what’s under my suit and clothes Fury, but if you wanted it to be, you only had to ask nicely.” Tony leered, resorting to sexual tension. No, he didn’t think it would work, but it was funny to imagine Fury discomfited under that smug expression. 

“With the suit separate from Tony Stark, you’re looking at a military who thinks Iron Man is nothing more than property. Property that needs strict regulation.” And wasn’t that just the truth. By disavowing that he was Iron Man, publicly, his position was more tenuous. It irked to be reminded of that by an intelligence agency of all things. 

“Just my luck, then. Where’s the staff here?” Tony knows that they’re alone, except the agents likely standing outside eavesdropping like overgrown pests. And at this point he’s done caring whether anyone sees. The helmet detaches with a whoosh of air, and he sets it on the bench beside him before making for Fury’s doughnuts. 

“That’s not looking so good.” Fury’s knowing smile hasn’t quite fallen off his face, but Tony doesn’t get the impression that the other man is particularly happy to note the black, corroding veins pushing up towards his head. Tony doesn’t want to think about how it says something that the people who noticed he was sick, beyond needing to go into heat, weren’t any of the people closest to him. 

“I’ve been worse.” Now, he knew they weren’t really alone, but hearing the footsteps behind him put him on edge. 

“We’ve secured the perimeter, but I don’t think we should hold it for too much longer.” Hips were not supposed to lie like that, Tony thought. 

“Um, you’re fired.” He mumbled. She stunk of alpha, which was unfathomably rude. Scent blockers existed, he wore them all the time, but the market only provided beta scents. Initially Alpha and Omega scents had been on the market, but a few instances where a beta had posed as an omega and somehow, someway, likely through religious means, managed to hoodwink Alphas into a legally binding contract, aka marriage, had changed that. The collective consensus of Alphas had been to do everything possible to ban Alpha and Omega scents from staying on the market. Not when Alpha autonomy and superiority would be at risk. Imagine a beta climbing the ranks that wore an Alpha scent. The horror. 

“That’s not up to you.” Natalie smoothly slid into the booth with Director Fury, their ease with one another apparent. Of course the government would have access to any kind of scent they wanted. 

“Iron Man, I want you to meet Agent Natasha Romanoff.” Natasha, Natalie. There was no one but Tony to say I told you so to. 

“Hi, we’ve met,” he ignored Natalie in favor of going for Fury’s jugular. “So, what Fury, are you going to come Mike Wazowski me in my own home from under my bed if I don’t go public with Iron Man and join your little team? Or maybe you’re more of a closet monster.” It almost didn’t hurt seeing his assistant betray Pepper and him like that. He should have known that any woman who could knock another person flat on their back in a second was never going to be defined as normal. He would have to take a look at how they were able to compile her identity in such an organic fashion. But mostly, he was reminded of Stane. Which was something he kept buried with lack of sleep, copious amounts of alcohol, work, sex, and now, dying. Stane had company in this little mental dungeon; Howard and Afghanistan were not, and maybe not ever, ready for any kind of emotional processing. Natalie he had already processed into category “Alpha dickhead.”

“We already knew who Iron Man is.” Natalie attempted to insert herself again. And if that little bit wasn’t being uploaded to a satellite and stored away in some expansive server room somewhere, Tony would eat his helmet. 

“Well yeah.” Tony gestured at his face. 

“I’m a SHIELD shadow, and part of the Avengers Initiative. Once we knew you were ill, I was tasked to you by Director Fury to help.” Tony’s ass, that’s all she’s there for. He’s about checked out of this, but relishes condescending to the person who lied to him and to Pepper. 

“Help? No. I suggest you apologize.” Which doesn’t seem to phase her at all. 

The conversation continues as Fury guilt trips him about Rhodey. Blah blah security guidelines blah. And when Natalie hits him with the lithium dioxide, it’s like diving into clear water. His vision brightens and his limbs are suffused with energy. He hardly hears Fury tell him that there’s another way before his gaze is boring into Fury’s with a desperate hope that he prays isn’t reflected on his face. 

\--  
_  
“JARVIS, could you kindly Vac-U-Form a digital wire frame? I need to manipulate a projection.”_

_“1974 Stark Expo model scan complete, sir.”_

_Tony fiddled, sliding away trees, walkways. What he’s left with is something Howard Stark not so much gave his son, as he reached forward into the future to cup Tony’s life into his hands and give it back to him. No, Tony wouldn’t forgive Howard for, well, everything else. But he did know that dear old dad wouldn’t have resented saving Tony’s life with Arc Reactor technology. If only to prove that he could. In his darker times, such as every day for the past several months, Tony could easily remark on the similarities between him and his father. Which made Tony grateful to live in a time where at least someone would call him out on it, even if that often involved referencing his designation. The designation that had turned Howard away from him._

_“The proposed element should serve as a viable replacement for palladium.”_

_“Thanks dad.”_

_“Unfortunately, it’s impossible to synthesize.” Impossible was Tony’s specialty._

_“Get ready for a major remodel, fellas. We’re back in hardware mode.”_

\--

As Tony worked, the current reactor hummed and sizzled like a tiny hummingbird of hate.  
Creating the new Reactor that would go into his chest was a thing never before seen on this earth, a leviathan event of such breadth and complexity, that when Tony finally shoved it into its socket, the Arc Reactor could only respond like Carrie White at the prom, rotating and spewing out energy. Tony thinks it’s the best school dance he’s ever been to. 

Blasting out of Malibu, the suit propels him faster than any commercial airline, though not too close to cracking an SR-17 Blackbird’s time. He’ll fix that on rebuild. 

He doesn’t track the time it takes for him to end up at Hammer’s festivities. What’s more important is landing on the stage and warning Rhodey about Vanko. Vanko, who isn’t settling for making new tech for Hammer. Perverse incentives: Justin should have studied them. 

Tony wonders if no one listens because underneath the suit they can feel the Omega vibe he has. Do designations vibe? Tony likes to think so.

When Rhodey goes stiff and the bots start to move into position, he knows he has to lead them away from the crowd. Vanko is likely to try and cause as much chaos as possible, to prove… what? That the government should buy his tech or that local warlords should? Tony’s certain it’s the latter, as spanking a government weapons contractor in public is frowned upon in certain circles, and downright kinky in others. 

Justin-fucking-Hammer and Anton Vanko. It’s not unlikely so much as too plausible. Even as the drones chase after Iron Man, it’s like they’re cheap knockoffs from alibaba. Which, these drones are more annoying than a condom full of fire ants. 

They fire from behind him as he weaves and dodges, managing to take out a few. Rhodey is in his ear, frozen in the suit, but he can’t think about that right now with the repulsor blasts being aimed at his head. 

It turns out Hammer did completely deck out Rhodey’s suit in useless weapons, as if many unusable guns were better than none. It helps then that the armor can repel most of Rhodey’s shots. 

“Sit tight Rhododendron, I’m about to fly the iron man suit into this man’s whole career.” 

\--

The battle means nothing when it comes to Pepper. Nothing. As the drones count down, Tony pushes the limits of the suit to reach the woman he’s come to think of as a partner, more than a friend. 

There’s a desperate moment where he thinks he won’t reach her in time, and the thought of that failure almost crushes him but for the anguished hope that he’s not too late. 

He catches her before using the repulsors on full blast to escape the range of the detonation, riding the blast radius out. The suit reads that the temperature is high, but not so high that Pepper will have any burns. He carefully presses her against the suit as he flies, the blasts loud enough to reverberate back his fear for losing Pepper. She could have been standing there, a second ago. Instead she’s safe in his arms, but what about the next time? He knows there will be a next time so long as she’s in his life. 

When they make it to the ledge, Pepper drops away from his arms and shoves at the suit, at him. He steps back, the suit’s mechanised sounds a swish that sounds far away to his ears. 

He tries to approach again and she pushes him back, her hair completely awry from the flight, face streaked with dry tears. 

“Oh my god I can’t take this anymore. I can’t take this. My body literally cannot handle the stress. I never know if you’re gonna, kill yourself—” Tony’s heart sinks to the bottom of his stomach and stays there, a leaden thing. She’s going to leave him, and he springs to his own defense in reflex. 

“J—”

“—or wreck the whole company.” She gestures at the empty air, eyes blinking rapidly. He thinks she’s holding back more tears, or perhaps anger at Tony’s failure. 

“I think I did ok!” He knows he didn’t. He didn’t do ‘ok.’ Pepper got involved; her safety was compromised. And yeah, he stepped in, saved the day, but hindsight was 20-20, and he should have made sure that Vanko was dead. The man was his responsibility, his cross to bear from the moment he appeared on the race track in Monaco. His enemies would always consider the people around him to be collateral damage at best, leverage at worst. 

“I quit, I’m resigning. That's it.” And while that broke his heart, he wasn’t taken aback. Selfishly though, he needed her. Somewhere inside, he thought, maybe after their shared trauma from the fight, he could have her in his life. He would. He would do anything to keep her around. 

“What did you just say? You’re done? It’s surprising.” Pushing Pepper has always been a skill. She’s never one to back down from a challenge, and while she’s at her limit for his bullshit, underneath that is a pragmatic workaholic who always steps forward, never back. 

“Nah it’s not surprising, I get it, you don’t have to make any excuses.” Her face transforms at his words, and she moves forward to contradict him. 

“I’m not making any excuses. All this time, you just humored me Tony. Do you know how that feels? To be heard but not listened to when it mattered? I feel like a fool, focusing on pushing you to take care of your heat, and it turns out, you were dying! So no, Tony, no, I can’t do this—”

“Pep, please—” That— that was not what he expected at all from her, and it seizes his body in paralytic fear and self-loathing. 

“—you lied. You lied and if there was ever to be a relationship, there has to be trust.” Trust. What was trust when someone who was supposed to guide you, be your shield to the world, took the very best of you to possess, leaving you to die? If she wanted blind trust, she was years too late. The best he could offer was security: money, Iron Man, his company. Maybe, just maybe, the spark of a love that endured despite those things. 

“I tried to protect you, even with the suit, all I’ve ever wanted was to protect you. And I know you deserve better—” 

“I’m not mad Tony. That’s the worst part. I’m just disappointed. Because now it’s not a question of whether I can accept Iron Man or not. You are Iron Man. You’re him, and Iron Man makes the kind of decisions a leader does, not a partner. We can’t be— we can’t be that. I’m so sorry.” 

“I thought I was doing the right thing. At the time it felt— it felt like the truth would burden you, drag you down with me, and I was headed towards death. Tainting our relationship with that— the future we thought we’d have, I just couldn’t destroy it. Do you understand? It’s all I’ve wanted, to be with you, for our own reasons.” He looked away towards the fires, the sounds of sirens piercing the air from all directions. If he wanted to get technical, he’d caused this. By making the suit, by being Iron Man, he’d caused the arms race to the perfection of the arc reactor. If he kept going, eventually something would come that he couldn’t defeat, drawn in by the lure of power his inventions represented. It was impossible to stop; it’s inevitable that he dreams he’d never started on this path. The one that was taking him away from Pepper, from all intimate relationships. 

“You don’t fear death Tony. Otherwise you wouldn’t put on the suit. But being so afraid of hurting someone you love that you can’t share your whole self, when you owe them more than secrets,” Pepper trailed off. “I can’t live with that. I love you so much Tony, but I have to keep my boundaries.” At some point he’d lowered his face mask, unconcerned with whether he was seen, and he scratched at his head now, dragging it down to run through his beard slowly, resigned. 

“Well, I suppose it never would have worked out. I’d have to upgrade from Louboutins to Stewart Weitzman’s if you stay as my CEO?”

“We’ll talk. I’ll handle cleanup.” She stepped closer again, and he swooped her up into a hug. He couldn’t feel her hand rise to hold his shoulder, or rub her thumb meagerly against his armor, but it meant the world to him that she still cared when he saw it. 

He still wanted to kiss her, and even if she had been right. If only once to say goodbye to a future denied. 

Their lips mashed together, and the teeth and spit were jarring, her lips thin and jerking under his. If he’d had ardor in the moment, it iced considerably with their kiss. 

“Weird.” He wiped at his face before slotting the mask back into place. 

“Weird? Yeah, well, yeah, weird like.” Pepper backed away and wiped at her face, looking downward in awkward embarrassment. 

“So uh. Glad you two solved that, but don’t think you’re getting off from a military-grade dressing down, Tony.” God damnit Rhodey. How like him to be in the most inopportune and humiliating moment of his life. Also, he thought that vanquishing his foes meant parades and spoils, not stern lectures from supposed friends. 

“You should get lost. Eavesdropping is for children and the government.” He waved his arm at his best friend who had watched him get shot down.

“I’m in the military, it counts. And shouldn’t breakups, even not-breakups, be done in public anyway?” Pepper smiled, the sad moment pierced by Rhodey’s brisk humor. He was so thankful for the both of them. No, he didn’t get what he wanted, but he didn’t lose them. Either of them. 

“And you’re the public now?”

“The only kind of public you want to be around.” 

“True. You kicked ass back there by the way.”

“Thank you, you too. Listen my car got taken out in the explosion, so I’m going to have to hang onto your suit for a minute, ok?”

“Not ok, not ok with that.” Yes he was. The idea of Rhodes wrapped up in Tony’s armor felt right. But he wasn’t going to let Honey Bear get away with thinking that stealing suits from friends was cool. 

“Wasn’t a question.” And Rhodes was gone, leaving him with a smiling Pepper.

“You really won’t stay?” Picking snarls out of her hair, his CEO, the other half of his life, sighed in a long suffering puff. 

“I’ll stay, as CEO. But no more secrets about you. And you’ll deal with your heat.” 

“Promise, anything you want Pep. Ah, well, not anything, but close?” 

“Ok Tony. Just— No more lies, ok?” Tony was going to try. He really was. 

\--

“I don’t think I want you looking at that. I’m not sure it pertains to you anymore. Now this on the other hand, is Agent Romanoff’s assessment of you. Read it.” Tony dropped the other file, snatching his personal folder from Fury. There was no denying he was interested in what Natalie had to say. Even though she was an Alpha, her scent, designation suppressants, and acting had been so sound. She’d played an Omega so well, but when she’d strode into the diner, that walk was all Alpha. 

“Personality overview. ‘Mr. Stark displays compulsive behavior.’ In my own defense, that was last week. ‘Prone to self-destructive tendencies.’ I was dying. I mean, please. Aren’t we all? ‘Textbook narcissism?’ In an Omega? Well, agreed. Okay here it is. ‘Recruitment assessment for Avenger Initiative. Iron Man? Yes.’ I gotta think about it.”

“Read on.” 

“‘Tony Stark not recommended?’ Which doesn’t matter, since Tony Stark doesn’t pilot the Iron man suit. But, really, how can you approve me, but not approve me? I got a new ticker. I don’t play Tony Stark when I’m Iron Man. I’m trying to do right by the people in my life, and even if I don’t have an Alpha, that doesn’t make me unstable. Designation-discrimination, I never expected it from you Fury.” Fury strolled leisurely to Tony’s side of the table. 

So this was good-bye. And good riddance. 

“You know what part of that assessment is missing.” Fury said. 

“I respect your brevity. It’s almost threatening, Fury. Put on your running shoes and get to the point.” 

“Given your personal health issues with regard to your designation, at this juncture we’d only like to use you as a consultant.” Tony didn’t let Fury stay in his space for long, rising up from the table and reaching for Fury’s hands to clasp them in a quick handshake. 

“You can’t afford me.” Tony’s decision to lead an Alpha-free life was not a choice of health, and it was kind of Fury to frame it that way. The truth was that he couldn’t tolerate anyone in his space after Afghanistan. Not without remembering Yinsen. The careful way he’d handled Tony, shielding him from inspection by their captors so that Tony could build their way out. His intimacy had been lost somewhere in the tunnels, with Yinsen’s body. He’d thought he could try again with Pepper, with someone who wasn’t obligated to like him for his designation or ability to make money. 

“You could use SHIELD’s heat service. We know the efficacy of the pills you take. Where do you think they came from? You have months at most before you go into a heat that could kill you without an Alpha, without a change in suppressants.” Tony stopped at Fury’s words. Without turning around, he spoke. 

“Coulson said they needed me, but not that much,” Tony turned then, and stalked back over to Fury. “You overplayed your hand there a bit, Mr. Gothic Pirate. Tell you what, I’ll waive my customary retainer in exchange for a small favour or three. The first of which is that Rhodey and I are being honored in Washington and we need a presenter.” 

“I’ll see what I can do.” How smug could a smug intelligence director smug? Very, was the answer. 

“Now, the Avengers initiative. You don’t want me on the team, that team, but you’ll take whoever else and the better remnants of the Soviet Union, aka Natalie. I, the unrepentant narcissist, can compromise. I’ll do your little heat service. In regards to that service, I’ll scent what you have on file, but if nothing fits, we work something else out, and when there’s trouble, you call me. As an Avenger, not just for my technology.” No one was going to have the right combination of scents. They never did. He was as good as secured from ever having to do a heat with a perfect stranger. 

“I’ll have Coulson deliver the stipulations tomorrow morning.” 

“You do that. And don’t add your scent to any of my options, because I definitely can’t see myself banging the human equivalent of a conspiracy theory. So third, you know what I want. Don’t hold out on me.” At that, Fury’s conceited smile curled into amusement. 

“I’ll have the new suppressant pills delivered. They should give you another six months. Pleasure doing business with you, Mr. Stark.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Avengers movie time! This is about half of the movie's worth of stuff. I wrote this stuff when I didn't know much about narrative arcs and things, so forgive me. Lol.

Tony’s kept up with SHIELD in the months after Vanko, unbeknownst to them. His infiltration is lazy, JARVIS glossing over the salient points of whatever SHIELD is trying to accomplish. There’s something in there about unlimited, clean energy, but the details are so finely wrapped up in encryption that he doesn’t want to alert anyone by brute forcing it. Besides, he’s about to go live with his own arc reactor powered tower in New York. Something he’d never give to SHIELD to reverse engineer. 

This is just one of the many things that SHIELD won’t be getting. Tony is suspicious of the now-cancelled Avenger’s initiative being a play to get him off the team when Fury had agreed to let him join. 

Nonetheless, Fury sends his suppressants and hasn’t reached out to Tony regarding the count down to his necessary heat. Which leaves Tony in a lurch, wondering when SHIELD is going to try and call in a favor. Tony thinks it’s going to be weapons, and he’s stuck in a moral quandary about whether he should provide tech that kills other people, or die himself. As an objectivist, the answer seems clear initially; one man isn’t worth the many. But, as a consequentialist, the loss of Tony in the world, making tech that saves people, could be more detrimental to the overall body count. 

He’s gotten his Arc Reactor for the tower online, however. It’s party time for Pepper and him, which is so not how he used to get down, but these days he’s practically domesticated. So of course, Agent Coulson shows up to crash his party. 

“You’ve reached the life model of Tony Stark—” He cocks his head to the side, a little customer service voice creeping into his tone. 

“This is urgent.” It sounds that way, but does SHIELD have to call their favor in right now? Right this very second? 

“Then leave a message urgently—” The elevators open, revealing Coulson with a phone in hand. 

“Security Breach. It’s on you.” Tony’s brows furrow at how JARVIS’s protocol could be overridden. He takes a swig of champagne in preparation for whatever it might be that caused Fury to set the hounds on Tony’s life. 

“Mr. Stark.” Agent Coulson looks harried as he strolls over. Which the man is unflappable, so Tony’s instinct is to suss out what’s wrong. But since SHIELD is coming to him, he’s got to play hard to get, regardless of where he stands with the intelligence agency. 

“Phil! Come in.” Pepper, that absolute traitor. She gets up, pleased, or pretending to be pleased, to meet one of the men who has a hand in keeping Tony from dying, again. 

“Phil—?” Tony said, surprised at the familiarity. He’s either having Pepper field too many of his calls, or not enough if she still is on friendly terms with any operative at SHIELD. 

“—I can’t stay.” He waves a hand at them.

“Uh, his first name is ‘Agent.’” Tony strides over, following Pepper. His party of two is not becoming a party of three. No matter Coulson’s claims. Unless Coulson has a new toy, in which case, maybe he’ll get to hang out with the cool kids. 

“Come on in, we’re celebrating.” _Traitor._

“Which is why he can’t stay.” Tony insists, a fake smile plastered on his face, which contrasts with Phil’s knowing little smirk that Tony honestly admires. Phil is a brick wall. Unreadable, unfathomable. It’s unlike Fury’s defense, which seems to utilize the stick up his ass to protect himself from being analyzed.

“We need you to look this over. As soon as possible.” The binder in Coulson’s hands looks important, but the man is seriously ruining the moment he’s having with Pepper. He hasn’t given up on the possibility of them, even if Pepper hasn’t reciprocated his feelings entirely. She’s still upset about the lying, which she has every right to be. Tony wonders if she’ll forgive him, or if it will stand between them forever. 

“I don’t like being handed things.” The wrong scent from an Alpha on his skin could trigger a heat. It’s an uncommon, but documented side effect of long term suppressant use. He doesn’t shake hands either, though Omegas are never expected to for scenting reasons. Tony is very careful with what he touches. 

“—well that’s fine, because I love to be handed things, so let’s trade?” Pepper attempts to hand him the binder and he dodges. 

“Look, I feel genuine anxiety when someone asks me what I want to eat. This is ranked a 6 on a scale of sweaty workmen to Tiberius Stone. Do I have to?” Maybe she’s forgotten about how he prefers these things wiped down, since he doesn’t know whose hands it has passed through. 

But he realizes she hasn’t when she presses the binder into his hands with an insistent look. And in her own clever, devious way, she’s letting the risk of a heat coming early push Tony into making a decision. If he didn’t admire her diabolical play, he’d be more angry. As it stands, he’s running out of time anyway, so he doesn’t comment on it. 

“Thank you.” Then she steals his champagne, which is most definitely his security blanket. He’s going to have to have a _talk_ with her about boundaries. 

“Official consulting hours are between 8 and 5 every other Thursday.” The unspoken message being, get the fuck out. Yesterday. 

“This isn't a consultation.” 

“Is this about the Avengers? Which I know nothing about.” Half of his brain is Pepper. Coulson couldn’t reasonably expect he wouldn’t share the knowledge with her. 

“The Avengers initiative was pencil-fucked by SHIELD.” Tony meanders away, opening the binder as he walks over to his holographic terminal. 

“I didn’t know that either.” Pepper doesn’t even attempt to dissemble. 

“Yeah, and while I’ve been invited, apparently I’m volatile, self-obsessed, Omega. Don’t play well with others.” 

“That I did know.”

“This isn’t about personality profiles anymore.” Fuck that noise, it’s always about who is the most pliable tool while still having enough brains to make their own decisions in combat. He knew the initiative had been scrapped because there’d been no major threats that required cooperative superhero types to solve. Which meant that the first chance Fury got, he would revitalize the Avengers. 

“Whatever. Ms. Potts? Got a sec?” She mumbles something to Phil before coming over to join him. 

At the terminal, he asks whether they had been having a moment. 

It had seemed like it, when she’d come in wearing Vera Wang and Louboutins. Almost like a date. He was supposed to have given up on his feelings, but he saw Pepper daily, and sometimes, his loneliness would get conflated with the affection he held for her. Tonight was one of those times, and Tony appreciated Pepper’s delicacy on the matter. 

“Oh Tony, we talked about this.” She intones in a low register. 

“Hey, I am doing what any reasonable person would do! Cloaking myself in a wall of denial and pretending that nothing happened.” He pokes at the panel, not making eye contact. 

When the screen comes up, he sees chaos. Videos of a giant green man laying waste to the area around him. A piece of technology that should rightfully be in SI’s hands if he’s correct, but has somehow been jacked by a Norse-freaking-god. 

“You have a lot of homework.” She looks pensive, retreating into her CEO shell as she says this. 

“But what if I didn’t.” He says in a tone that might be better suited to someone being held over a fire. She shakes her head. 

“I’ll be in DC Tony,” her heels click away as Tony is glued to the screen, half because he doesn’t want to see her leave him, and half because he’s entranced by the video footage. Particularly the centerpiece of all of it, Captain America. 

\--

When Tony shows up to save Captain America’s ass, and what an ass it was, he doesn’t think it would be so easy. While waiting for the other shoe to drop, he watches the Alpha his father idolized through his mask. A little over six foot, the suit SHIELD has encased him in is bright and promising, like America, but not really that protective of the goods, also like America. 

“Agent Romanoff, did you miss me?” He throws his playlist on the Quinjet to distract from the fact that he’s grabbing all the data on Loki that they have on file. He slams Loki to the ground with repulsor blasts before landing in front of the man and drawing out every weapon the suit has. 

“Make your move, Reindeer games.” Captain comes to stand next to him, agitated. Tony thinks the Captain could handle a little more tossing around. Maybe straight into Tony’s unoccupied fantasies. He curbs that impulse as soon as it crops up. The time for a pubescent boy’s indulgences is not while there’s a genuine super villain on his knees in front of them. 

Loki puts his hands up and it’s all over, though it shouldn’t be. Tony thinks that Loki must have something else up his sleeve, and he wants to insult the man by grabbing him by the horns to see if he does anything about it. 

Otherwise, Tony is hyper aware of the Captain next to him. The other man is blissfully ignorant of the history between them due to Tony’s hidden identity, and Tony doesn’t intend to reveal himself to be Tony Stark, Howard Stark’s son. 

He thinks the man’s suit needs a complete makeover though, maybe from the guys on Queer Eye, who would likely be rendered insensate by lust. Because even in those basic bitch colors, Captain America is all Alpha. Tony wondered how much dye went into making his leather utility belt blue and why they used a seat belt buckle. What a waste. Didn’t the Captain study American history where we shot at Brits who wore garish uniforms like fish in a barrel? Well, it still didn’t stop him from wanting to run his hands over Cap’s abs to see if they felt like the topography of a map. 

The man was beautiful under the mask, and he couldn’t wait to see him out of it, where he could easily scent the man, if he wasn’t wearing a suppressant for pheromones. He probably was, but Tony could try for a whiff. Black and white photos of the soldier didn’t do him justice, even from the little Tony could see. 

On the Quinjet, Steve echoes Tony’s concerns about Loki’s capture, and Tony reigns in a smart comment. Tony is a real actor. Fuck Broadway; pretending to not be a superhero was the real qualifier for theatre. 

“I don’t like it.” Steve leans over to whisper to him. 

Tony hums, noncommittal. The less he talks to the Captain, the better. When he reaches the helicarrier, he’ll shuck his suit off and have JARVIS take over. That way, when Tony Stark does meet the Captain, he can ensure that he controls the stage. Tony is good at this. But what is he not good at? 

“Fury didn’t say he was calling in Iron Man.” 

“Yeah, well there’s a lot of things he doesn’t tell you.” He cant resist getting a jab in there, though he should really leave that to his main identity. He knows the value of appearing as though Tony Stark and Iron Man are different people. 

Of course, that’s when shit goes off the rails. And Tony had loved thunderstorms as a kid! The ship shakes from a bolt of lightning, and Tony just knows that it’s not a regular storm. When something slams onto the top of the quinjet, he figures he better let it in before it peels open the jet like a sardine can. 

A giant flying man whose muscles give the Captain a run for his money bursts into the Quinjet and snatches their prize. Tony, in a fit of pique after being smacked with a comically large hammer, goes after him. No one gets to just bully anyone they want. That’s not okay. He’s the only bully around here. 

The Captain tries to stop him, but Tony can’t lose the one person who knows where the Tesseract is. If it’s gone, if Loki escapes to complete whatever use he has for the item, it’s game over. 

He slams into the ren-faire blond with all of his repulsors at maximum, skidding the man across the forest floor. 

“Do not touch me again.” The man’s voice is dangerous, threatening. With hammer in hand, he staggers up, ready to go another round. This is going to be unpleasant. 

“Then don’t take our stuff,” Tony says. 

“You have no idea what you're dealing with.” If Tony wasn’t so freaking irritated from having to capture Loki yet again, he wouldn’t taunt the man in front of him. But he’s never been one for self-preservation anyway. 

“Did anyone ask you? I’m taking Loki back so he can tell us where Mr. Stark’s Tesseract is.” The other man’s face darkens, the lines of his body stiffening at the insult. 

“This is beyond you, metal man. The Tesseract belongs to Asgard and Loki will face Asgardian justice!” 

“A sore loser, I never would have guessed. How’s about, we take the cube, and you take Loki back to wherever he crawled out from, hmm? Until then, stay out of my way. Tourist.” He mumbles the last line and turns to leave, repulsors on partial thrust. 

He should have expected the hammer, but he didn’t think the man could throw that thing with the sheer amount of power he does. It slams him through several trees, scratching his precious armor and destabilizing his flight as he drags the suit on the ground attempting to stop some of the momentum. His read-out flickers, which is bad news. 

He starts to get up, and hears the telltale whipping noise of the hammer being swung. He feints, not looking at the man before hitting him with a repulsor blast straight to the chest. It’s enough time for him to get up and blast towards the man, striking him with a kick. 

It’s just his luck that the guy gets up again, and when the lighting hits, he’s sure he’s a goner. The beam heats the armor to maximum, the burn inside the suit immediately causing him to sweat and overheat. It’s like drinking out of a fire hose. But when it stops, JARVIS kindly informs him that he’s overpowered by, like, a lot. The repulsor blast that comes out is ridiculously powerful, smashing into the man at top speed and bringing him to his knees. 

It’s not enough to slow the pace of the fight, and they each dive head-on at the other, their trajectory taking them up into the air. Tony slides the man into a mountain, breaking off bits of rubble and scraping at his own suit while Mr. Muscles struggles and punches at him as if he can’t feel a damn thing from being dragged across solid stone. 

They land back in the forest, tumbling away from each other.

Things get testy after that. Tony is headbutted. _Headbutted_. By a man with a thicker skull than his metal suit. Speaking of which, the idiot has bent his gauntlet out of shape. Would have ripped it off, but for a quick repulsor in the face. 

When he’s tossed to the ground, he’s almost a goner when the hammer comes down right after. He gets away, however, and flies back around to exchange some more punches with Shakespeare in the park. 

Which is of course when Cap intervenes. Things get weird after that when the man flies at the Captain, hammer outstretched, and all Tony can think is that that’s going to hurt like a bitch. 

Instead, the reverberation through the forest knocks down several trees and tumbles Tony a little closer to Cap. Muscle-man looks properly stunned.

“Are we done here?” Cap asks. From the look on the man’s face, they most certainly are. 

\--

The man, who is a Norse god called Thor, which Tony would think is some kind of SHIELD conspiracy except for the existence of his brother, Raging Bull, offers to take Loki to the Helicarrier, following the trail of the Quinjet. The Captain agrees and then looks at Tony after Thor flies off with his brother in tow. 

“So how’d you get down here?” He tries to sound casual, but the reason he zoomed off on his own was so that the Captain wouldn’t show up and give Tony an opportunity to out himself. Tony is really trying here, but he’s never had to be two people or do much of anything to protect his identity. SHIELD knew, but they wouldn’t outright tell the Avengers team. Tony knew that much at least. 

“The normal way. Next time, wait.” The Captain eyes him up, his lips curled into a slight frown that makes Tony want to _do_ something about it. 

“Maybe I will. Or maybe I’ll just take you with.” Oh god, he’s flirting with Captain America as Iron Man. The guy hasn’t even met Tony. He’s got to keep in character, but it’s hard when he wants so badly to tease the man after that demonstration. Asking a god to put down his weapon? The audacity on the man is only eclipsed by his gorgeous looks, and maybe not even then. 

But he’s good. He’s— he’s the best of men. Tony can tell. He can always tell when someone has ulterior motivations, even if he doesn’t know what they are. So the calm and expectant look on Rogers’s face when he then asks if he can hitch a ride to the carrier, well, Tony can’t say no. Tony would follow this man wherever he might want to take him, which means he’ll take him all the way to where he wants to go. 

With Steve on his back as they take off, Tony worries it’s the Omega in him that wants Steve. He’s the perfect specimen of a man. Like the world decided this is what an Alpha ought to look like and poured charisma and goodness into a mold, and out popped Steve Rogers, last bastion of the American dream. 

“Is Mr. Stark going to be on the helicarrier?” JARVIS picks up what the Captain says, and he slows down to reply affirmatively. 

After they land on the carrier, Tony tries to discreetly make off so he can remove the suit and be on time for whatever meeting they’re having about Loki. He’s also having trouble keeping his mouth shut around Cap. This is a strategic retreat, or so he tells himself. 

“Will you be joining us?” Steve asked. 

“I’ll be skulking around, but no, I leave the science to Mr. Stark and he leaves the fighting to me. Secret identity and all that.” He laughs, which sounds awkward through the modulator, but he isn’t sure what else to say about it. He feels out of sorts around Steve, like he’s guilty of something already. For the first time, his secret is weighing on him. Of all people to trust, if you can’t trust Captain America, then the cup is half empty in this world. 

“Suit yourself.”

“Or unsuit myself.” Lame. Very lame. He runs off before he can hear whether the Cap laughed at his dumb joke or not. 

After peeling the suit off, and storing it in a SHIELD approved containment unit, he makes sure to summon one of his old suits to the carrier as a precaution in case they have to fight again. He’d had to wrench the crushed gauntlet off, and now he’s not so sure he can get it back on again. Checking his watch, he figures the new suit will be here in an hour or so. Plenty of time to start looking for that weighted companion cube, aka the Tesseract, and euthanize it.

“—iridium. What do they need the iridium for?” 

“It’s a stabilizing agent,” Tony says as he strolled on over. “—no hard feelings Point Break. Iron Man says you have a mean swing— It means the portal can open as wide, and stay as open as long as Loki wants.” He starts puttering around the display consoles, looking for a surreptitious way to stash his hacking device. Everyone has eyes on him though, so he causes a distraction. 

“Uh, raise the mid-mast,” he points at one side of the room, and then the other, “ship the topsails. That man is playing Galaga! Thought we wouldn’t notice. But we did.” Damn it they’re still looking at him. Time for some sleight of hand. 

Finally he plants the device, and strolls around to the other side of the table while explaining that the other materials are… immaterial. As Barton can get them pretty easily. They just need a power source to kick start the cube. 

Of course he’s the only one that’s done the homework here, and knows how Loki is going to heat the cube up until it makes like a volcano and kills a lot of people.

“Finally, someone who speaks English!” Banner is a gem. The man’s a genius after Tony’s own heart. 

“Is that what just happened?” Steve grumbles, and Tony swivels around. 

“Why Captain, is that the name of your sex tape?” He fixes the Captain with a lascivious smile, so that the other man knows he’s talking to him, before turning back to Banner and listening for the telltale sputter of one Steve “teasable” Rogers.

“What— No— Um?” 

“It’s good to meet you, Dr. Banner. Your work on anti-electron collisions is unparalleled. And I’m a huge fan of the way you lose control and turn into the Mr. Hyde of Jolly Green Giants.” Tony watches the smile drift down off of Dr. Banner’s face when he mentions the Hulk. Huh. He’s going to have to figure out what the guy’s so torn up about. If Tony could be a giant green rage monster, he’d use it for building things, like his very own hadron collider. 

Which is when Nicky has to walk in and spoil everything. 

“We’ve got one introduction to do before we start. Captain, this is Tony Stark. He likes solving problems and he’s going to help us track the cube. The only problem he can’t solve is how not to be a complete ass.”

“With all due respect Fury, I’m going to completely ignore what you just said. Captain, I am delighted by your shiny-gold hair and facial symmetry.” He snatches Rogers’s hand, and he’s struck by just how warm the Alpha is. As an Omega, he’s always struggled with cold. It would be so lovely to wrap himself up in a blanket of muscle. He somewhat reluctantly lets Rogers go before he holds on too tight. After all, he doesn’t actually know the man. Even if he knows just about everything in his past that there is to know. 

“It’s great to meet you Mr. Stark, I was friends with your father.” And just like that Tony is shocked out of his daydream. Of course Captain America thought he was a replacement Howard. Maybe even the love affair his father had with Captain America was reciprocated. How gauche. 

Choosing to ignore the unintended insult, he snatches Banner’s arm and begins to drag him towards the lab, escaping tall, blond, and loathsome taste in friends. 

\--

He and Banner are chatting amiably before Steve walks in at the worst time. Tony’s just shocked Banner with a prod, testing a theory that the Hulk can determine real danger vs. stimuli usually associated with danger. He’s right of course. Banner is fine. But Cap doesn’t seem to think so. 

“Mr. Stark!” And Steve _glowers_. Which looks good on him too, that chiseled jawline with high cheekbones emphasizing the granite-cut shape of his nose and crinkle in his brow. As he’d said, perfectly symmetrical. Blond. Gorgeous. Tony can’t resist. But he’s going to have to try, because Captain America is turning out to be Captain shitty-attitude. 

“You really have got a lid on it, haven’t you? What’s your secret? Drum circle? Capoeira? A big bag of weed?” He ignores the Captain and refers to Bruce for the sake of agitating the man. Steve has such confidence; he wants to _wreck_ it. Wants to see his fair skin go pink while Steve’s widened eyes get bluer. Tony’s not sure what’s gotten into him, but no Alpha’s throat ever looked so good to bite down on.

“Is everything a joke to you?” It stops him in his tracks, if only for a second. Does Steve not know he’s teasing? 

“Funny things are.” Tony feels as though he’s on uncertain ground. He doesn’t know if Steve means what he says or if he’s privy to the game that they’re playing.

“Threatening the safety of everyone on this ship isn’t funny. No offense, Doctor.” Ok, so Steve isn’t. He doesn’t think the man is stupid. Maybe he just dislikes Tony? He’s used to that. He knows, vaguely, that he comes off as an ass, just like Fury had said. But it wasn’t actually a problem to solve. His high walls had kept the worst of the people out. It’s something where he knows that if you can see him, get past the chaff, that he may not be lovable, but he is an okay-ish friend. At least Rhodey tells him he’s not the worst. 

“Hey, poking Banner is what Jesus would have done.” Steve does not like his tone, he knows this, but Tony’s not stopping now. “You’re tiptoeing big man. You need to strut.” He tells Banner. 

“And you need to leave religion out of it and focus on the problem, Mr. Stark.” What Tony wouldn’t give to take that Catholic guilt and stick it where the sun don’t shine. 

It’s forgivable that the Captain doesn’t realize that no one cares about blaspheming anymore.

A terrible read on the room is not. This was supposed to be fun. 

Now he thinks that Cap and he are going to get into pissing contests. His therapist has told him that expectations are premeditated resentments, and Tony doesn’t disagree. Howard had always been unreliable, and it was just one more thing to chalk up to the man’s terrible personality that Howard had misjudged Captain America. Or he’d judged him correctly, and assigned Rogers the same category as he did himself. One that Howard would call something like “ambitious,” but Tony would refer to as “asshole.” Peas in a pod.

“You think I’m not? SHIELD has like ten different motivations for doing something before breakfast. Fury didn’t call me until now. Why? He’s not telling us something. The man is a spy. He’s the spy. His secrets have secrets.” It’s almost unbelievable how Rogers doesn’t see this. Is the man just that naive? The ice must have done something to his brain if he thinks that everyone has the best of intentions. Except for Tony, of course. Tony hadn’t even been born when Cap disappeared, so it’s not like Howard could have spoiled Rogers already on what a piece of shit Howard thought his son was. 

“So, you think he’s hiding something?” Duh. 

“Do I think he’s hiding something? Look, understanding Fury-speak is a gift that I have. A useless, useless gift. I just presume he’s always not telling the full truth and I’m always right. So yes, there’s something else.” If Fury had secondary, or even tertiary motivations that the two of them meeting was good for the Captain, he was sorely mistaken. It was on like Donkey Kong now. 

Tony was going to annoy the ever living crap out of the embodiment of America. 

He’ll use his behavior like a mallet to smash any existing crushes on those long, muscled legs, or delightfully broad back that Tony could theoretically climb. 

It’s for the best. Rogers is never going to think differently of him, not with Tony’s father haunting them. 

“I’ll believe that when I see it, Mr. Stark.” Tony had to hand it to him. In a twisted way it made sense that Cap was going to believe what he saw, not what Tony says. But it leaves a bad taste in his mouth nonetheless. He should be used to it by now. 

“A warm light for all mankind… Loki made that jab at Fury about the cube.” Banner interrupts their bickering to bring them actual useful information, and Tony tries to back off emotionally from thinking about Rogers so much. Granted the man is likely going to piss him off in a couple minutes, but it’s worth a try. 

“I heard it.” _You have ears, Cap._

“That was meant for me.” Tony butts in. 

“Stark Tower? That big ugly… building in New York?” Tony glares at him now. It took less than a minute for garbage to come out of Rogers’s mouth. His building is a stunning example of modern architecture. So what if the Captain probably likes his late victorian with a side of musty old curtains and brass fixtures. Tony notes that the Captain must have all-around bad taste. Has he seen his own uniform even? 

“It’s powered by arc reactors.” Bruce pipes up from behind the terminal while Tony crosses his arms and stares down the Captain, daring him to comment. 

“Which is why it’s so weird they didn’t pull me into work on the Tesseract in the first place. You gotta ask yourself what’s the reason if they knew they needed lots of energy, which I have.” Tony’s had enough of being dismissed. 

“So yeah, what are they doing in the clean energy business without Tony?” Banner, who is a true broseph, backs him up. 

“When my decryption finishes, we’ll know!” Tony claps his hands delightedly before striding back over to Bruce. 

“I’m sorry, did you say…?” Tony has a vicious sense of satisfaction that Cap can’t keep up with the conversation. How dare anyone so pretty treat Tony like he’s the gum on the man’s shoe. 

“My AI has been running it since I met you. In a few hours, we’ll know all about SHIELD and their mother. Every filthy little secret.” He should have done this sooner. SHIELD hasn’t been exactly copacetic with their information even before the loss of the Tesseract. Fury is holding Tony’s heat above his head, doing nothing to make the situation more at ease or offering him information on how the situation is to proceed. And that bullshit with trying to make him a consultant is part and parcel of it. If Fury hadn’t had anything on him, Tony would still be a consultant. He’s only repaying the favor. 

“Yet you’re confused about why they don’t want you around?” Ouch. The Captain’s lip twitches with what could be impatience or passive aggressive hostility. 

“As a highly specialized genius, I spend a lot of time trying to advance the frontiers of human knowledge. However, as someone who was born in New York, I secretly believe that true progress is a fantasy and that I need to prepare for the end times. So yes, hackers are gonna hack, and get the real low-down on what’s going on. Because not doing so will probably let Rock of Ages win and we’ll probably end up hogtied in the man’s dungeon.” 

“You don’t need to invade SHIELD’s privacy to know what to do. It’s obvious what he’s doing. He’s trying to wind us up. This is a man who means to start a war, and if we don’t stay focused, he’ll succeed. We have orders, we should follow them, and in doing so, we’ll maintain the upper hand here.” Sounds like an argument from a grade-A ass kisser. It’s clear that the good Captain has never been on the receiving end of how systems inevitably and inherently betray people. No matter the good intentions of those running them. And Fury isn’t even in the same category as good or well-meaning. 

He raises his eyebrows at Cap, entreating the man to parry his next words. 

“Ah, I see your value to Fury now. Are you always his mouthpiece or do you take breaks to eat? Yeah, so, following is not really my style. I’ll let you take that one Captain Sparkles.” Tony has had it with this guy. His body still wants him, inexplicably. But that’s overwhelmed by the sheer amount of desire he has to punch the man in his beautiful fucking face. The man is logical to the point of irrationality, in that he can’t even think for himself. He’s been sucking on SHIELD’s tit for far too long.

“And you’re all about style, aren’t you?” Well yeah, I mean he’d never be caught dead in the getup they’ve thrown Rogers in. His Iron Man suit is unparalleled fashion. 

“Do you kiss Fury’s ass with that mouth? Of the people in this room, which one is A. wearing a spangly outfit, and B. not of use?” Tony hits the man where it hurts. Soldiers are one and the same. He’s had Rhodey figured out for a long time, and he uses that as a template to understand what makes Rogers tick. Little Army boys despise the insinuation that they can’t do a whit of good in the present situation. 

Steve gives him another once over, eyes going down to his chest before flicking back up to Tony’s face. 

“Come on Steve, Tony’s a jerk, but he’s not wrong. Tell me this doesn’t smell a little funky to you?” Oh it’s Steve is it? He has a momentary flare of judgment for Banner, but he reasons that the other scientist is on his side and is just doing his best to relieve the tension. 

“Just find the cube.” Steve gives up or ceases caring, and walks away. Tony doesn’t watch the man’s ass when he leaves. No he does not. 

Bruce and Tony keep chatting in the lab. Tony remarks on how ridiculous the Captain is, but Bruce brushes it off, unwilling to get between anyone. Bruce is a better man than he is. This leads Tony to try and help him cope with his little green problem, but Bruce doesn’t take well to that either. It’s hard, because Tony does understand. He has the arc reactor, which is a great responsibility in and of itself. 

They spend the rest of the evening tweaking sensors. At around nightfall, Tony gets the results from SHIELD’s servers. He does not like what he sees.


	3. Chapter 3

Tony had woken Bruce up early. The files he had found had kept Tony up most of the night, but he figured Bruce deserved some sleep before he wreaked havoc on everyone with what was on SHIELD’s servers. Tony can’t sleep well anyway; the inflammation is getting worse, and his body is starting to feel overheated, his skin tight. They’re muttering over a file when Fury walks in, surprised they’re not working on the Tesseract. 

“What are you doing, Mr. Stark?” Tony doesn’t think Nick ever changes his clothes. Which is unsanitary and also admirable that he somehow doesn’t even get anything on them, if so. Tony would have had grease stains on those in a hot minute. 

“Uh, kind of been wondering the same thing about you.” Now Tony knows he has a smug look on his face. He’s practiced looking down on people in a mirror. You can’t properly make someone feel like shit otherwise. He hopes it’s working. 

“You’re supposed to be locating the Tesseract.” Emphasis on the word supposed. 

“We are. The model’s locked and we’re sweeping for the signature now. When we get a hit we’ll have the location within a half a mile.” Banner did at least take the time to make sure that if they were going to confront Fury, the man couldn’t have any complaints about their not doing what they said they would.

“And you’ll get your cube back, no muss, no fuss.” Tony pokes and prods before spinning the screen to face Fury. “What’s phase 2?” Which is when Steve walks in and steals his thunder by slamming a bizarre looking assault rifle on the table. He looks pissed, and Tony has to give the man some credit for doing work to find out on his own that Tony was right, although he’s not likely to give Tony the satisfaction of having been right in the first place. Alphas. Can’t be shown up by Omegas, no siree. 

“Phase 2 is SHIELD uses the cube to make weapons. Sorry, the computer was moving a little slow.” Tony doesn’t bother glaring at the man or telling him that if Captain Icicle had been here last night instead of freezing them out, he’d have known about phase 2 already. A stubborn ass is a stubborn ass, however, and there are more important things on their plate. Like cornering Fury on this, presenting a united front, and lambasting the idiot for thinking he could lie to them about making weapons. Something that Tony is sadly an expert in. 

“Rogers, we gathered everything related to the Tesseract. This does not mean that we’re—”

“I’m sorry Nick. What were you lying? These are for a threat that doesn’t exist, Fury. Do we have a loch ness monster defense system? No, no we do not.” Tony talks over them and whips the monitor around, showing schematics for weapons that were powered by said Tesseract. 

“I was wrong, director. The world hasn’t changed a bit.” Rogers looks so disappointed, and Tony is fiercely glad that look hasn’t been turned on him. 

That’s when the rest of the crew stumbles in, and Banner hones in on Natasha. Tony remembers somewhat from their conversations how Bruce came to be here, and it’s not looking good for Soviet Nat. He asks her whether she knew, and of course, Natasha deflects into concern for Banner. Feigned or not, Banner doesn’t take the bait. 

Now maybe Loki is in their heads right now, maybe not. But Tony can’t see why anyone should be listening to SHIELD or their operatives at all at this point. Fury is like the one eyed wizard in a fantasy novel, preaching about woe and all the variety of things that lead to a monocular life as a paranoid person. This time he’s blaming Thor. Thor, who apparently tore up a New Mexican town for funsies with Loki. 

But Fury isn’t wrong about existential threats. Or at least, he isn’t as delusional as he usually is about them. Tony had read over what had happened in New Mexico and can see how SHIELD would have liked to have been in more control. However, making world-ending weapons is like deciding to burn down someone’s house because they kicked you in the shins. Nuclear deterrents don’t work how people want them to, especially if said aliens decide they aren’t at all adverse to loss of human life. 

Thor confirms his suspicions that messing with powerful objects nets you powerful enemies while Steve states the obvious questions. Nick defends himself with altogether lame-ass excuses about having his hands forced, something, something deterrents. Yup, as if someone personally stuck their hand up Fury’s ass and used him like a puppet to make a weapons program. 

“Remind me how you made your fortune again, Stark?” Nick accuses. 

It’s then that the Captain accuses Tony of something he frankly doesn’t deserve. 

“Omegas shouldn’t be involved in weapons manufacture—”

“Wait! Wait! Hold on. How is this now about me and being Omega? ”

“I’m sorry, isn’t everything?” 

“It’s the lack of effort on that last insult that really gets me, Cap. There’s nothing wrong with being an Omega in arms manufacturing, even if I don’t personally want to do it. Oh look, you’re going to make the face again. Jaw all tight with your eyes boring holes through me. Sorry cupcake, you’ll never get the satisfaction of my guilt.” They’re left glaring at each other, Tony rolling his eyes even though he wants to stride right up to Rogers and show him how much more creative he can be with his words. 

Thor and Nick interrupt their pissing contest, but the moment of animosity doesn’t pass. It lingers in the air, a thread pulled tight between them. Rogers sneaks angry and confused glances over at Tony while Tony lets a languid smirk rest on his face. It seems to be making the Captain angrier too, which is to his benefit. This idiot is going to be so fun to rile up. His pretty face is sumptuous with vexation, all pink and parted lips. 

“Captain America’s on threat watch?” Banner has his arms crossed, looking defensive and incredulous. 

“We all are!” Natasha snaps back at him after defending herself from Thor.

“Wait, you’re on that list? Is it because of stabbing? And are you above or below angry bees? I bet the reason is stabbing.” All of the Avengers except Tony are Alphas, and Alphas absolutely rank higher on the threat scale. Add super powers and assassin skill sets and you have a volatile group of the most dangerous people in the world. Omegas were supposed to be a team balancing influence, but Tony was not that kind of Omega. I mean, look at how soothing he was to Captain America, an Alpha’s Alpha. 

“Stark so help me, one more crack—” Hell, ignoring Cap seems to work even better than giving him the time of day. 

“Threat! Verbal threat to the poor, little Omega. I feel threatened.” 

“Show some respect.” The Captain is apoplectic, and it’s glorious. Tony swears he’s seconds away from stomping and gesticulating. Or maybe he’s one of those guys that gets even more self-contained. Tony doubts it. He thinks Cap wants to tussle. A stray thought about how fun it would be to be pinned by all that power invades his mind, and he tells his inner Omega to shut its trap. 

“Respect what? Is the Omega being too uppity for you?” Tony bites back, hoping it goads Rogers to even greater heights of incandescent rage. 

It makes the man go colder, and maybe Tony is wrong about how Cap gets when he’s _really_ mad, but maybe Tony is right and he hasn’t seen the explosion yet. Thor and Banner add their piece while Cap is glowering and looking pointedly away from Tony, so he throws his arm around the other man. 

“Why shouldn’t the guy let off a little steam?” Tony says in reference to Banner. Never let it be said that Tony isn’t willing to do death defying feats worthy of a hero, because Cap looks like he could bite his fingers off as he shoves Tony away. 

“You know damn well why! Back off!” He meant to put his arm there, but it doesn’t stop the flare of instinct he has when the Alpha pushes him away. His Omega nature knows it wasn’t a good idea, but Tony can’t help himself against ass holes. He’s got to get in their hostile faces and make it _worse._

“Oh, I’m starting to want you to make me.” Steve prowls around to Tony’s left, Alpha command in every line of his body. Tony’s separate instincts roar at each other. _Submit_ , whispers the Omega. _Show him your neck._

“Yeah, Omega with a suit of armor he can’t even pilot.” It’s like a punch to the chest, the fact that he can’t openly be Iron Man. That he won’t. His eyes flick to Fury and Natasha, who keep their faces closed. Good. Tony is never going to show how he feels about what Cap has said on his face. Nope, he’s going to bury those feelings as deep as he can. Scrunch them into a little ball and just—grow a couple of ulcers to mark the spot, but otherwise, insult the man back and pretend it’s all fine. 

“You’re a baby-faced, no-nothing soldier from Brooklyn when it was a shit-stain. You think you and your newly dropped balls are going to stop me doing what I can? Because see, I haven’t forgotten that you may technically be a grandpa, but project rebirth puts you at the terrible twos you overgrown toddler.”

“I don’t need age to know that you’re an asshole. And I know Omegas worth ten of you. The only things you do are for yourself; I’ve read your file. You’re not the guy who makes the sacrifice play. No, you pay people to lay down on the wire for you while you crawl over them.” And that cuts him, deeper than he expected. He’s just— he’s just an Omega. 

“I think I would just cut the wire.” Cap’s eyes are so blue, glittering and sharp. The intensity with which he’s looking at Tony only makes the ripple of his muscles stand out. 

“Always a way out… You know you may not be a threat, but you can’t call yourself a hero.”

“A hero? Like you? You’re a lab rat, Rogers. Everything heroic about you came out of a bottle!” 

“I’d ask you to put on that suit of yours, go a few rounds, but you’re too much of a coward for that.” 

Tony is speechless. He’s reminded that he had tentative hopes that he and Cap would get along, but he knows hope is disappointment in advance. He’s always been entitled, afraid. And those are the root of hope, aren’t they? The need for a happy ending, that things turn out okay. As they are most certainly not ok now. 

Tony sneaks glances at Rogers as Bruce monologues about his terrible depression. Tony can’t blame the guy; Tony’s soon going to know what it feels like to be out of control, to be someone he’s not. His heat will make sure of that. 

“Doctor Banner… Put down the sceptre.” As he looks at Banner, he thinks maybe the Star Spangled man might be right. Tony the Omega is selfish, self-interested, wealthy and spoiled. He hasn’t yet changed the world, or made up for delivering death to lesser developed nations on a near daily basis. Hasn’t made up for trusting Obie. For being so— so him, that not even Pepper would forgive his lies to himself and others. 

His morose thoughts are interrupted by the beeping of their homemade, All-American Tesseract finder. As the majority of the group follows Bruce over to the terminal, Tony makes to leave, hoping to get to his suit. 

“You’re not leaving! I don’t care if you have Iron Man as a bodyguard, you’re staying in the lab where it’s safe.” 

“You gonna stop me?” And that’s when Cap snatches his neck, squeezing down on the sensitive glands. He leaks out a soft and embarrassing _hngh_ before he starts to pull out from under the Captain’s grip, but the man has him solidly in his hands, and Tony _likes it_. It’s disgusting, low, and dirty, but Tony sees the table to his right and wonders if Steve is going to take him over there, bend him tight over it, hips bracketing Tony’s ass, and _do something._

A neck grip is an intimate and instant relaxer for Omegas, and Tony briefly remembers that it used to be socially acceptable to ‘take down’ an angsty Omega for their own good. But it’s very much not ok in these times. 

“Captain!” Fury shouts, and Rogers looks over, perplexed, but lets Tony go. Tony takes advantage of the window and bolts. His thoughts are now consumed with anger at Rogers, at himself for being so easy to subdue, for feeling like he has to hide who he is to the rest of the world, including Rogers. Would Rogers have said he was as worthless if he could put on the suit? 

He knows, in his heart, he did nothing to encourage Rogers to harass him like that, and that Rogers himself didn’t know what he did was wrong, but god does it ever chafe, and he doesn’t want to be expected to forgive the man later. Forget, maybe. 

He’s headed down the corridor when he hears an explosion and trips from the rocking motion of the ship. Tony goes down hard, shoulder smashing into the metal grated walkway. 

It’s seconds later that Rogers is there. He snatches him up, and runs his hands over Tony’s arms and then torso. It’s almost clinical, and Tony suspects it’s standard for soldiers to check over each other. Tony is still distressed at the proprietary way Rogers is touching him, fingertips pressing into his skin. 

“Omega.” Cap says it like a prayer, like he’s grateful Tony is ok, after all the time they spent insulting each other. Condescending prick of an Alpha. 

“Tony,” he bites out. “And I’m fine. Go.” Cap gives him a longing look of regret, before jogging off somewhere in the maze of the helicarrier. If Rogers is the type to have remorse, he should have thought of that before he treated Tony like a stereotype from the 40s. 

Tony finds the replacement suit in a hidden storage where he’d directed it. It’s standing there, sleek and clean lines, the kind of detail that’s only been in his SI products and head before this, leaving his emotions and life in a chaotic mess. He wants it, wants this. Craves being Iron Man with a thirst that leaves his throat dry and his limbs atremble. Iron Man is an Alpha. He’s untouchable. 

Less than thirty minutes ago, Tony was reminded viscerally that he is an Omega. He remembers he needs to have his heat. The acrimony he feels towards Rogers, towards himself, settles into his bones as he makes towards Engine room 3. Cap doesn’t like him. Doesn’t respect him or see him as anything other than an Omega. There is nothing he can do to change that. But he can be Iron Man. Just for today. 

He whips through the corridors, losing himself to the clean glide of the suit. 

\---

Tony stays in the Iron Man suit after the attack. The Captain had listened, done what he’d needed in order to get the engines back online. It would have been refreshing if it didn’t compound the fact that he could never let the Captain find out about his identity if he could help it. 

He’s tired, worn down from spinning the engine as fast as the suit could go so that the whole helicarrier wouldn’t come down. The suit itself is once again wrecked, but he has to stay inside of it, letting the sweat trickle down while the blood from a small gash sticks to the inside of the helmet. He sits calmly at the table with the Captain, head hung low over the death of Coulson. Coulson who had been his contact with SHIELD since Fury had introduced them. The one who had pulled him into this with a rather desperate plea in the form of a data dump. 

It wasn’t fair. It was never fair. 

Fury had tried to create a team out of the husks of people who had already sustained too much damage from the world at large. If Tony could have connected with people, he would have. He didn’t hold out hope for the disgruntled old man at the table working well with Tony Stark. It burned in his gut that Iron Man and Captain America might be a different story. 

It truly wasn’t fair. 

Even as Fury used Coulson’s death to try and bind them, Tony resented it. He wasn’t made for this. He lied as needed, fought and bit out insults as a default. There was no way he was equipped for this. 

But he listens anyway. He can’t help it. 

At least until he can’t take it anymore and stalks out of the room. 

\--

Tony has stripped off the suit by now, and called for another one to replace what he’s bent out of shape. It’s a very good thing he aggressively creates new models of the suit every couple of weeks and has them fabricated. The other suit is flying the excess of the first home using a spare reactor for power. Tony always keeps a few around, just in case he needs the suit to operate without him inside. He cleans up, washing the blood from his face, and applying concealer to a bruise high on his neck that he got from bouncing around in the turbine. 

He’s not hiding in the containment area now, per se, but he’s not interested in company either. Which is of course where the Captain finds him. 

“You heard, I see. Was he married?” Without the HUD, Cap looks human, touchable. Tony wishes he still had his mask. Rogers looks unruffled from the fight, leaned up against the wall with his arms crossed, his flexor muscles taut. Tony doesn’t like what it says about him that he notices. Tony doesn’t notice people, but he notices Steve Rogers. 

“No. There was a cellist, I think.” He knows. Tony plays pensive nonchalance, unwilling to engage with Cap more than necessary. 

“I’m sorry, he seemed like a good man.” Of course he was. He was steadfast, and while Tony didn’t believe the same things as the other man, the conviction with which Coulson did his job was a trait he was well-familiar with. Even if Tony kept his dedication to atonement close to the chest. In a twisted way it’s still selfish, because although he can say he doesn’t put on the suit for himself, the very act of doing so in order to right a wrong is a form of arrogance. And he’s well practiced at playing that. 

“He was an idiot.” Rogers brows furrow, and he looks hurt in a way that encompasses more than the conversation. Like he wants to get along with Tony but doesn’t know how. 

“Why? For trying to fight?” Rogers scoffs, the insinuation being that Tony wasn’t a fighter. 

“For taking on Loki alone.” Tony shrugs and backs up, facing the Captain. 

“He was doing his job.” Like a magnet, he’s drawn to talk to Rogers. To antagonize him. 

“He was out of his league, he should have waited. He should have—” Tony approaches, deriding Coulson’s choice, even as he knows he’s wrong. Tony would have stepped in the way too, despite what Rogers has said about wires and crawling. Truthfully, he can never live up to Cap’s sacrifice, but it seems that no average human probably could. The man had saved New York. 

“And how would you know that? You’re not SHIELD, or a soldier. What are you?” Cap comes forward, and for a moment Tony thinks they’ll pass each other by, that Rogers will move out of the way of Tony’s pacing. But he doesn’t, and Tony shuffles in front of Cap, the other man peering down at him, trying to parse Tony. 

“I’m a Genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist. I think I’m qualified enough to say that he should have held his fire.” Tony can feel Cap’s breath on his forehead, they’re so close, and he can’t help it. His nostrils flare and take a drag of the air, hoping to catch Alpha scent, but Cap’s wearing the good suppressants, and he only gets a whiff of beta. And Cap— Cap returns the favor, tilting his head and leaning forward. Tony is frozen, his inherent drive as an Omega pressuring him to _stay still_ and let this Alpha have what he wants. 

Cap scents nothing but beta suppressants, of course, and he pulls back, nose crinkling, eyes locked on Tony’s. 

“Qualified? And what about you being a former weapons manufacturer who uses money to buy redemption makes you _qualified_?” It’s a slap to the face. Tony has never put it into words, into context, but he’s always known that to some degree Iron Man is atonement for sins committed. Sins that Steve doesn’t and will never connect to Iron Man. It’s an injustice that Tony can barely live with suddenly. He wants to call the suit to him, cloak himself in its strength and force Steve to _see_ him. 

He settles for harsh words. 

“You are so close, yet so far. You almost get it, but that’s worse than not getting it at all. See, people like me, we make you. Without someone like me, you’re nothing. And if I wanted? I could probably figure you out and make a dozen more. That’s how unique you are. And with all that, not even you could stop what happened to Coulson.” It’s low, reminding Cap of who he couldn’t help. The man has a savior complex the size of his ego. 

“I don’t like what you’re insinuating. There are some things you can’t manufacture, Mr. Stark. You’ve got to earn them. If you want to change anything about the world, save the Coulsons in it yourself, you’ve got to try a lot harder than that. At least I was there during the fight.”

“Says the former soldier to the inventor. You know that Iron Man can’t do what he does without my genius, yeah?” 

They stay silent for a time, Rogers looking like he’s chewing on his next words. It’s proof of how _good_ the Captain is that what he says next isn't a repartee of an insult. 

“This isn’t the first time I’ve lost someone in a war, you know,” Rogers finally says as Tony paces away from him. But at the Captain’s words, he whips around again. 

“But you aren’t a soldier anymore! Neither of us should march to Fury’s fife.”

“I agree, but I’m not going to fight Fury over it. We need to focus on the task at hand. Where’s Iron Man?” Tony blows air out of his nose, frustrated that Cap is correct on all counts. The man who came out of the ice is different from the man who lived in the world’s history, than Howard’s Captain America. 

Do you even know who you are, Cap?

Again, Tony longs to be Iron Man in truth. 

“He’ll be ready to go when we find out where Loki is.” 

“I’d like to meet him properly. We didn’t have a chance to be introduced before the attack.”

“He’s signed an NDA to keep his identity secret. You’ll see him on the battlefield, Cap.” Lies like this come easier to Tony. It always makes him think of Pepper when he tells one, however. 

“Fine. Well, you claim to be a genius then, so where is Loki.” 

Tony mulls it over, Steve pestering him for answers. When he realizes just where Loki is going, he feels ice cold fear grip him. Pepper. Happy. 

“Oh, shit.” 

\--

Tony easily dodges the rest of the Avengers as they all go to make ready. 

_Here we go again. Same problem, different suit._

“JARVIS, delete all evidence regarding my little trips to and from the suit.” He steps into it, feeling integrated with himself once more. Iron Man is what belonging feels like. 

“Sir.” 

He zips off without waiting, assuming that the Cap ‘n crew are behind him. It’s not like Thor needs to hitch a ride. They can’t wait for Banner either, but Tony hopes he’ll show up in time. 

“JARVIS, buddy, I need you to do me a favor.” 

“Of course, sir.” 

“If Loki takes over me, I need you to lock me out. Don’t let any of the suits be used for combat.”

“As long as you don’t intend to override my primary protocol to protect your life, I will comply.” 

“Here’s hoping you won’t need to step in, J.” 

\--

He’s in luck; the device is perched on his tower’s roof, spinning as it spews blue energy the color of the Tesseract. 

“Shut it down Dr. Selvig.” Tony looks into Selvig’s bloodshot and blue eyes, and sees both a scientist excited for the possibilities and a terrified human hiding just underneath that. Powers of the sceptre aside, Tony thinks that it’s possible Selvig could be of some help, but he doesn’t have time to find out. 

“It’s too late. She can’t stop now.” Selvig is turned around, and Tony can see the offshoots of sparks stemming from the machine before them. It would be beautiful, fantastic, if it were only the science to be concerned about. Spinning in place, the electric arcs look as though they’re getting stronger and more focused. 

“Oh-kay.” He lays into the device, blasting his repulsors at it.

It’s a massive mistake; he’s tossed bodily through the air, the power from his gauntlets reverberating back towards him. A muffled, but loud boom echoes through the city, and Selvig is tossed off his feet as Tony works at stabilizing himself in the air. 

“Plan B,” Tony says as he spots Loki standing proudly on his tower. He flies down, eying the smug Norse god loitering on his balcony. It’s a short jaunt into his penthouse from the landing platform, and he feigns arrogance as he walks in with his armor glinting in the well lit atrium. This is a mask he’s well used to wearing, and Tony has to count on it working for Iron Man as well as it does for Tony Stark. 

“Please tell me you’re going to appeal to my humanity.” Loki is in full medieval garb, carrying his staff like an emotional support weapon. Despite the location and circumstances, Loki looks nervous. 

“Oh no. People are random and pointless. But these people, they have the right to lead their aimless lives to the fullest of indiscriminate events that simply occur to them. Which you want to prevent. So, I’m here to threaten you.” He meanders down to Loki, keeping his cool.

“Are you, Stark?” Well, shit. It’s possible that Barton knew he was Iron Man, and told Loki. Or there’s some other manner that the god is able to tell what is under the armor. He’s going to have to deal, however. And if he’s going to suffer through this, he’ll do it with some libations. 

“Yeah, well. Would you like a drink?” 

“Stalling me won’t change a thing.” Tony doesn’t know if it will, but he has to think that it’s better than nothing that Cap and assassins make it here sooner rather than later. 

“No, no, no, _threatening_. You don’t want a drink? You sure? Well, since you know who I am, I might as well have one.” His bar is fully stocked, and he flips down his face mask as he heads over to snatch a bottle of the good scotch and a tumbler. This is a four-shot day he’s having, and he breathes the aroma of peat and oak in with a singular joy. 

“Yes, I know who you are; the Omega who wants to be a warrior. All out of place. What do you think your team will say when they find out what you really are?” Now, Fury may not have a problem with Tony being Omega, but he won’t be helping him deal with the public in a meaningful way for Tony. Anything to cover SHIELD’s ass will be the order of the day. 

It’s not the end of the world if his team finds out, but the public will inevitably scrutinize his every action thereafter. Were the enemies that powerful or was it his unstable Omega nature that allowed them to destroy that building? Should an Omega be in charge of powerful weaponry? Perhaps the government should take it away, just to be safe. You know those Omegas; sometimes they need a firm hand. 

“Does it matter?” Stall, just stall until they get here. 

“No I suppose it doesn’t. The Chitauri are coming. Nothing will change that. What have I to fear?” The other man is staring out the window now, and he looks small in his elaborate robes. He wears his wealth and class like armor against the world. Thor hadn’t mentioned what Loki had against his family, but Tony knows Daddy issues when he sees them. Loki is much like himself, if Tony had decided to be a wreck of a human being. The truth of that stretches between them like a chasm, and Tony sees a dark reflection on the other side. 

“The Avengers. Just a little name we call ourselves. But hey, it includes your brother, the demi-god, a super soldier, a man with breath-taking anger-management issues, and a couple of master assassins. I mean, look, your Caligula style party sounds like great fun, but it’s our job to rain on any parade that encourages playground bullying and could end life on earth as we know it.” 

“Mm, sorry, but that’s the plan.” Loki turns, a manic smile pasted on his face, the edginess of his composure still concerning Tony. Where did the man get his army anyway? 

“We don’t have to kick your army’s ass if we can just kick yours. So when we do come, it’ll be for you.” 

“Assuming you can get past the thousands of soldiers and ships.” With the sceptre clutched in his left hand, Loki looks feral as Tony meanders towards him. There’s nervousness inside the Asgardian, and Tony doesn’t think everything is as copacetic about this situation as Loki is playing it off to be. There’s something underneath all of this that Tony hasn’t yet pinpointed, but now that he’s looking for it, he’s starting to see the cracks. 

“Also assuming you can get those past the Hulk.”

“I thought the beast had wandered off.”

“Yeah, you’re missing the point. We’ve done away with monarchy, so even if you manage to find a fancy chair to sit on, it’ll never be a comfortable one. You may not lose, but you won’t win. And maybe we can’t beat your army, but really, it’s all down to you. Because if we can’t protect the earth, you can be damn well sure we’ll avenge it.” Loki is stalking ever closer, his face twisted with quiet fury, staff clenched tightly. Tony knows what’s coming. He hadn’t seen what it had done to Barton, but he’d read the reports at this point and seen enough of Selvig to be concerned. 

“How will your friends have time for me, when they’re so busy fighting you.” The hooked end of the staff tinks against his reactor, blue energy spiraling up the end of the metal to burst out ineffectually at his chest. His sigh of relief is loud in his ears. Tony never thought he’d be grateful to not have enough of a heart to mind control. 

“This usually works.” The staff clinks at his chest again, and Tony is surprised once more. 

“Well, performance issues, it’s not uncommon. One out of five—” That’s all he gets out before he’s again blasted away, this time into the wall with energy from Loki’s staff. Pieces of drywall crumble around him and a painting drops onto his head before clattering to the floor. All he can think is that Pepper is going to be furious. 

He bounces back, gliding at Loki, but the man becomes permeable, wisps of green dust sliding off the armor. Of course, that’s when Loki blasts him through one of his bullet-proof glass windows. The armor takes most of the brunt of it, but he’s rattled inside the suit. 

“You will all fall before—” Loki takes a repulsor to the chest and slides across the floor. 

From above, he hears an ominous mechanical humming that causes him to look up. The blue of the Tesseract stretches to the sky, peeling back layers of clouds like acid shredding a lab coat. 

“Right. Army.” They are so fucked. Out from the hole comes humanoid figures armed to the teeth with alien technology. Tony doesn’t know what their guns or other weapons do, and while he’s not eager to find out from personal experience, he knows he’s here to save as much of New York as he can. It’s what he wants to do; he steels himself before charging at the incoming soldiers, Loki be damned.

The suit twirls through the air as each repulsor blast hits its target, all while dodging blue balls of energy and the flowing crowd of more soldiers. He’s not enough, and as more pour through, one finally clips the suit. 

_Automated missiles are a god-send._

His shoulder storage opens as the tiny darts of explosives ratchet out, seeking their targets with JARVIS automating the tracking. 

It’s still not enough. 

The Chitauri glide smoothly down on their soaring bikes, following the natural path of the streets, hitting cars with beams that pack such a punch, each vehicle flips and explodes with the blast. Tony wonders if they think the cars are weapons. Or if they don’t want the populace to escape. None of that matters as Tony watches bodies jostle in the cars that are the unwitting victims of the blast radius, people having been stuck staring at the blinding blue of the tesseract’s portal. Fear and sadness roil in his gut. 

Such loss of life is unprecedented. No matter if they win, they’re going to have lost. 

Tony is looping and diving, using his ability to maneuver to smash the less able speeders into buildings. Even if he clips just a few of them, they fall from the sky. Unlike any decent human being, the Chitauri make no effort to save their fallen brethren. 

“Iron Man, we’re on your three, headed northwest.” He swoops through the streets, running up the avenue with multiple bogeys on his tail. They fire as he pirouettes through buildings, and he tries to get them to aim downward at the ground, rather than the buildings around. It’s hell. Tony doesn’t know how many people are dying right now as the Chitauri relentlessly pour out of the portal. 

“Swing up Park. I’m gonna lay ‘em out for you.” He twirls by and trusts that the Quinjet will be there, and thank Thor it is, because he was about ready to try and plow through a building all on his lonesome. 

“Sir, we have more incoming.” JARVIS’s warning is highly redundant, but he appreciates the effort as the HUD lights up with arrows directing him towards the portal once more. 

“All right, let’s set the phasers to fun and keep them occupied.” It’s then that the Quinjet, in an attempt to interfere with the fight between Thor and Loki, takes a direct hit and whirls down to the ground. He has to trust that they’re fine. That drawing enemy fire is the best he can do. 

That’s when the sky groans with something like the sound of a whale on sonor. 

When he sees it, he’s thrown back to the time he visited the Royal Tyrell museum as a boy. They’d closed it down just for him. An ichthyosaur skeleton had been embedded in the floor, 75 feet long. The tines of the spinal column were locked in an eternal wave, the long dead creature making its final swim before having been encased in silt. 

What comes out of the hole is like that first initial fear Tony had when he saw the fossil. And it gets worse from there. The metal plating on it should preclude it from flying, but it operates as if swimming through the air is as easy as water. 

Creatures are not inherently evil, but this one, with its razor fangs and bellowing screech, might be. Tony considers whether they bred these creatures, and thinks they must have. 

“Hey Iron Man, are you seeing this.” Cap is in his ear, as if Tony isn’t the closest one to the giant opening in the sky. 

“I see, still working on believing. Where’s Banner? Has he shown up yet?” 

“Banner?” Tony rolls his eyes. Clearly, Cap is not well versed in the ways of the Hulk. Tragic. 

“Just keep me posted.” He’s near constantly weaving between buildings now, hoping not to get caught in any traps. The Chitauri are thankfully foolish enough to not set any, and he’s able to draw them in a neat line while he shoots random repulsor blasts behind him. 

“JARVIS, find me a way into that ooey gooey center.” Tony’s decided to take one of the big dogs—whales—on. It’s teeth look like sharpened dinner plates in its narrow, reptilian head. If he could catch it in the eye, that would be a major win. But as he gets close, he realizes he doesn’t see any. 

“Sir, I don’t think you’ll like what you’ll find inside.”

“Thank god it’s not a pinata then.” 

He releases a barrage of missiles straight into the face of the whale. It roars and makes a hairpin turn towards him while he passes by. Plus one for having some kind of intelligence. It’s not the soldiers who are guiding it then. Perhaps it’s internal. Maybe he can hit it in the hive-mind or something. 

“Well, we got its attention. What the hell was step two?” He pauses to watch it lumber through the air before realizing he should probably regroup with the Avengers. It takes no time at all to find Cap, Hawkeye and Widow duking it out with an endless stream of Chitauri foot soldiers. He watches as Thor lands next to them. Tony zips by, playing air control over their little group. Most of what he hears is over the coms. 

“The power surrounding the cube is impenetrable.” Tony checks what Thor has said and sees that the machine is encased in a forcefield. It’s self sustaining, he suspects, and might be nigh impossible to stop. His stomach drops to the bottom of his gut. If they can’t stem the tide, there’s no way they can hold off for even another half hour while the military gets here. 

“Thor’s right. We’ve got to deal with these guys,” he says. 

“How do we do this?” Nat is all business. She’d make a great second in command to Cap, who is the logical leader here. Iron Man is just a grunt in a suit as far as many of them know. 

“As a team.” Cap is a walking advertisement for those camps where you do trust falls. It makes him vomit in his mouth a little, because it’s not like the Captain would be caught dead catching Tony. Tony wonders if the Captain ever thinks about how it wasn’t that long ago he was in the war fighting nazis, and now, now he’s here, saving the world, again. From freaking aliens. Tony feels a burst of admiration for the fact that the Captain hasn’t lost his shit over all the changes he’s endured. Nope, he’s only turned into a giant asshole instead. 

“I have unfinished business with Loki.” _Don’t we all, Thor._

“Yeah? Well get in line.” Hawkeye is rightfully furious. Poor dude got whammied hard. Tony shudders to think if he had been working with SHIELD from the get-go on the Tesseract, what would have happened. Loki probably would have won by now, and that’s not even arrogance. Iron Man is formidable, and the only person with codes to stop it is Rhodey or Pepper. Even then, the first thing he’d do is create a suit without any checks or balances, if he were under mind control. 

He’s moving back and forth above them, firing at will against the Chitauri speeders that keep attempting to interrupt their conversation. 

“Save it. Loki’s going to keep this fight focused on us, and that’s what we need. Without him, these things could run wild. We got Iron Man up top. He’s going to need us to—” The star spangled man with a plan may be correct. 

The Captain is interrupted by Banner, and Tony is so utterly grateful that Brucie bear is here he could kiss the man. With that, he’s off to keep shooting at Chitauri, drawing them away from the throngs of running and screaming people. 

“Iron Man, we got him, just like you said.” Which is perfect, because he’s got the attention of the flying whale again, the creature rippling madly through the air behind him, shredding cars and anything in its path to get to Tony. 

“Then tell him to suit up. I’m bringing the party to you.” He can see the Avengers before him, with Bruce waiting. From video footage, he trusts that it will take no time at all for Bruce to transform. If the Hulk wouldn’t let Banner kill himself, he’s certainly not going to let it happen now. 

Hulk smashes the front of the whale, causing a chain reaction along the animal’s spine as its head stays anchored to where the Hulk’s fist is impaled into it. It flips up, slowly, all the momentum it had running through its body flowing through it, and like a tree, begins to fall towards the Avengers. 

“Hold on.” He fires into it, hitting a newly created opening into the whale’s thick flesh. It explodes, The carapace-like shell falling off the body. The Hulk howls as Tony lands next to the other Avengers. 

It was a small victory, as it turns out, before more Chitauri stream from the portal.

Cap gives out the orders and Tony snatches up Barton as he’s told to monitor the perimeter. He’s not the only flyer, but it makes the most sense having him be the whale-wrangler. 

Barton grabs hold of him as they skyrocket up. 

“Barton, stop squeezing me. This is a quick ride, not a heimlich.”

“First time flyer Stark. You’re lucky I don’t need a puke bag,” Clint remarks as Tony settles the man on his perch. 

Tony watches as electricity hits a towering building, and he knows Thor is at the heart of it. He’s ridiculously grateful as he sees one of the whales light up like a discotech. 

It’s redundant, but Barton warns him about the speeders who are riding his ass, hard. They can’t bank, so he ends up smashing them against walls on a sharp turn through a tunnel. 

“Nice call on the speeders. What else you got?”

“Thor’s taking out a squadron down on 6th.” Tony is starting to slip from Iron Man into Tony Stark. At this point, he’s too jazzed up to be careful. The sweat is drying as fast as it’s pouring off him, but it doesn’t change that it’s hot in the suit, and tiring having his arms thrust forward in front of him. His biology is doing him no favors right now, as his whole body aches from the activity. Technically, he shouldn’t be doing this. With his heat so close, it’s straight up hell. 

But the alternative is that the world ends, so Tony figures he’s forgiven for the suicidal decision making. 

“And he didn’t invite me.” 

He passes by Nat, who is _riding_ a Chitauri. He’s so very proud. 

But like a magnet, he can’t stay away from the Cap as he sees the man single handedly taking on an entire squadron of Chitauri on his own. He blasts through several of the screeching humanoids before lining up his repulsors to Cap’s shield. Automatically bracing himself, Cap takes Tony’s bursts of energy like a champ, using them to eradicate the next wave of combatants. 

When he looks up, however, he sees more fighters on the way towards Legolas, and he figures he should give the guy a hand. He takes off, smashing and roaring into Chitauri soldiers, knocking them off the building. 

Finally, the military arrives and starts clearing out alleys for their wide Humvees. Tony thinks about what’s happening in the background. SHIELD is likely all over this, and he wonders how far they’ll go to keep this contained. The World Council is the power here, which means it’s not just comprised of American interests. Biggest issue being, they need to get the portal closed. If they can’t, they have nothing. 

If it were Tony, he would either call other military powers to help, or he’d consider it a lost cause. 

Keeping track of other battles is also part of what he considers his job. He’s there for aerial support. For rescue. He watches Thor take out whale after whale. The Hulk crushes through buildings, launching himself at every target he sees. Loki gets blown out of the sky, and Tony is not sure where he lands until he sees Bruce jump in after him.

Good. 

He navigates to the side of one of the armored whales and starts to laser into its hull. 

“Sir we will lose power before we penetrate that shell.” The next plan Tony has in mind is quite possibly a gambit. It’s foolish, reckless, and Tony is all about it. 

He does it anyway. 

The whale floats towards him, body undulating and almost graceful. It’s maw opens wide, saliva sticking to its teeth as it shrieks at him, and Tony dives into its darkness. As he does, he releases several missiles from his legs, shredding through what counts as a digestive system for an alien. 

It explodes and he’s tossed bodily to the ground, landing in a bus stop before skidding hard on the concrete. The HUD flickers and he stands up, dizzy. 

Almost immediately, he’s met with blasts from Chitauri weapons as they converge on his position. They slam him to the concrete again, and he rolls around to dodge more blasts. 

“Stark do you hear me? You have a missile headed straight for the city.” Fury taps into his coms as a Chitauri uses the butt of its gun to smash Tony into the ground. Sparks fly as he responds.

“How long?” The HUD is a shaky mess, its targeting accurate while the cameras blur the features of the Chitauri who are firing directly into his face as he lays on the concrete. 

“Three minutes, max. The payload will wipe out Midtown.” Oh fuck. 

“JARVIS put everything we got into the thrusters.” Tony knows he sounds desperate, and he rises off the ground in a shower of sparks and repulsor energy, blowing Chitauri off of him with ease. 

“I just did.” In the air, he circles and looks for the nuke, establishing contact with its rudimentary piloting system through JARVIS. There’s not enough time to hack it, and even if he did, where would he send it? 

He pays the barest attention to the coms, but when Natasha says she can close the portal, he has the best idea ever. 

“No, wait.” 

“Iron Man, these things are still coming.”

“I got a nuke coming in. It’s gonna blow in less than a minute.”

Tony skates past the bridge, using the water as a stabilizer to push off and towards the nuke. He can’t believe they’ve done this. It’s reckless, and irresponsible. Is this how Pepper feels when he shits the bed on some merger or board meeting? Tony is deathly afraid for her, for all of New York. 

The nuke is speeding along at a cool 400 miles per hour. Tony’s suit can reach it in seven seconds, and once he does, he can match its speed exactly. He’s got time. 

“And I know just where to put it.” He thinks maybe he can lead it up to where the Chitauri are still streaming out, but the tug of the autopilot tells him otherwise. The Mark VI is beaten and battered, his power reserves so very low, but he should be able to maintain air in space long enough to ensure the bomb hits an enemy target. Any enemy target. Since Obie, he’d fixed the icing issue, but there’s only so much air. He tells JARVIS to switch to recycled air the second he breaches the portal. 

“Iron Man, you know that’s a one-way trip.” Rogers is on the line, confident in Tony, the man he doesn’t know is behind the mask. He doesn’t answer. 

“Save the rest for the turn, J.” JARVIS only asks whether he should call Ms. Potts, and he figures he might as well. He’s glad in this moment that they’re not together. If they had been, this would have been next to impossible for him to do. But she doesn’t owe him anything. He’s not always done his best by her, but he did, does, love her. And she was right. He’ll tell her that. That Iron Man and Tony are linked, and that he would have lied to her again somewhere along the line and risked his life like this. 

The phone rings, and rings. She’s probably on a plane somewhere; Tony struggles to recollect. 

The buildings stream by now, the nuke wiggling uncomfortably in his grip. As he reaches several football fields away from the Tower, he turns on the repulsors on his torso, tipping up the nuke to glance the side of Stark Tower, up and into the portal. 

It takes all that he has. 

As the light falls away behind him, he chokes for a moment. He keeps his eyes as open as possible so that he doesn’t look away, doesn’t let go until it’s time. 

Slowly, his hands lift away from the nuke, the suit going dark. He gazes out into a great nothing filled with so many more Chitauri than he could have possibly imagined. The nuke speeds on, oblivious to its change in scenery or trajectory. 

There’s so many. 

There’s no possible way that this army couldn’t find their way to earth at some other place and time. This isn’t the kind of army that you use to conquer a city; this is a planetary invasion. 

They’ll be back.

Maybe not in a year, or ten years, but no army like this stays contained. This is Napoleon, Genghis Khan. Every army that’s ever been created solely for the purpose of conquering. They won’t stop. He knows that. 

Loki couldn’t possibly have gotten this army on his own. There are greater powers behind it. Something the earth has never seen. What is the Tesseract that it generates such power to break the fabric of space? For once, Tony kind of doesn’t want to know. 

When the nuke hits, it smashes a large control ship, the one that he can see in the forefront. Behind it linger many more, but Tony suspects that only one ship has had their soldiers disembark, given the distance. The resulting explosion is enough to push him back, and he closes his eyes.


	4. Chapter 4

Tony wakes to a loud bellowing, the sun bright in his eyes while ashes play in the light. It stinks horrendously, burning rubber and other even less pleasant scents fill his nostrils. 

Oh shit. His mask is off. They know. 

Above him are Thor, the Hulk and Steve. Thor looks bemused, and Tony isn’t sure that the Hulk could be considered to have facial expressions besides smash and hulk smash anyway.   
But it’s Steve who is looking down at him with a paralyzed expression, his lips parted and eyes wide. 

The Hulk roars again. 

“What the hell!” Blinking, Tony swallows and twitches, looking around at the Avengers team and the devastation of the city. Buildings are still on fire and everyone is covered in soot, but as far as he knows, the team is intact. 

“What just happened? Please tell me nobody kissed me.” He can’t look away from Steve, whose eyes are piercing into Tony’s now. He wants to crawl and hide from the Alpha who looks like a cross between angry and shocked. 

This is fucked up. Tony has fucked up. 

Steve is going to take him off the team, he just knows it. So he barrels on, hoping that Steve doesn’t notice the stink of his apprehension. 

“We won. And you’re Iron Man.” 

They're a mirror of each other, Tony thinks. Making tough calls, putting their life on the line for the world. But like Howard, Steve can’t see it in Tony, and he can’t blame Steve for that. There’s a darkness when he stares into their reflection, except he likes what he sees on Steve’s side and detests the selfishness on his end. Steve was born good; Tony learned the hard way. 

But he doesn’t have to admit to that today. Today he did one good thing in a long line of bad things he’s always done, and that’s a reprieve before he’s once again told he’s not good enough. He’ll take it.

“Yup, I was Iron Man all along, oops. But hey, we did it. All right, yay! Hurray. Good job, guys. Let’s just not come in tomorrow. Let’s just take a day. Have you ever tried Shawarma? There’s a Shawarma joint about two blocks from here. I don’t know what it is, but I want to try it.” Putting on a mask is what Tony does best. Fake happiness beats genuine misery any day. So when Steve smiles ruefully at him, Tony thinks that maybe, just maybe, he’ll escape unscathed. Even if in the end, shrapnel is shrapnel, and he’s going to end up alone with the things he’s done wrong. 

Steve smiles and huffs, but his pupils are more dilated than they should be as he looks off into the distance. Is it possible he’s reeking pheromones? There’s no way to tell with the suit on. 

“We’re not finished yet,” Thor reminds them. And yeah, there’s still Hellboy up there to contend with. In Tony’s freaking tower, if he hasn’t escaped yet. Though where Loki would go is beyond him. His army is gone, Thor is here, and he certainly can’t go back to dear old dad. 

“And then Shawarma after.” 

“I need to talk to you after that.” The Captain’s brow is furrowed as he gazes down at Tony. No way and no how is that ever going to happen. 

They make it up to the tower in record time, all six of them eying Loki from his position on the floor. 

The tower is a wreck, and Tony can only imagine the budget for the city’s cleanup.

“If it’s all the same to you, I’ll have that drink now,” Loki says.

“No, see, I’m the only one who is going to get drunk at any point today. As drunk as whoever it was when they decided all this was a good idea, because it certainly wasn’t just you who put this party together.” He gestures at the ruined living room of the penthouse. 

“Tony, _no_.” Steve’s Alpha command is strong, and it shuts him down as he takes a step back away from Loki and tilts his body towards Steve. Fuck, that was powerful. He’s going to need to work on something to moderate his response to Steve specifically. 

“Hey, I know I am terrible and I accept that. Just one drink, and in front of Loki. It’ll make me feel better,” he wheedles. He doesn’t want the drink specifically, but now that he’s outed as Iron Man to his teammates, putting up a front on his personality doesn’t seem important anymore. What does seem important is liquid courage. 

“I support this decision.” Clint doesn’t lower his arrow that’s aimed straight at Loki’s face, while Natasha rolls her eyes. 

“Omega, no.” Steve’s command is stronger now, and he can’t disobey. Doesn’t want to. He feels like he’s floating a little, and he pulls his jaw shut before Steve realizes that Tony was about to drool from just those two words. Reining it in is his top priority right now. 

“Fine.” Tony draws out the ‘i,’ trying to sound put together. 

He manages to look composed, while the others look on at Loki. He’s so grateful they haven’t noticed. This thing with Steve is freaking him the fuck out, but all he can do right now is keep some distance between them. 

Thor promises to meet them at the shawarma place in a few, after he secures his brother. Thankfully Loki is done putting up a fight. 

The diner they find is small and covered in broken glass. The owners are an older couple who are already working on cleaning up the floor. After they’re welcomed inside, they all sit at two tables pushed together with chairs at either end. Tony deliberately picks a seat far away from Cap. One next to Thor who probably can’t tell by scent that Tony is an Omega. Yes, everyone knows, but they don’t need to smell him; that’s totally gross. He can’t currently scent Steve from his place either. He feels a push and pull to go near the man, but the instincts he’s learned since Afghanistan tell him to stay away at all costs. 

The people there are kind, gesturing for them to take it easy, that they’ll take care of everything. And they do.

Now that the battle is over, they’re all stuck in a fog of silence, each reviewing what happened that day in their minds. Tony still sees the wormhole, the edges of it so bright blue it burns his eyes as he zones out while staring at the dinged up chairs and tables. The flash of the bomb going off, the pull of gravity at his freezing body as he falls. 

Then there’s the sight of the largest, most technologically advanced army he’s ever seen at the end of it all. Suspended in the sky, waiting. 

What are they going to do? Whoever that was will be coming for them. Maybe not soon, but Tony can’t fathom how they wouldn’t want revenge for what just happened. 

It does not help in the slightest that Steve is staring at him over the table. Natasha is huddled in on herself by Clint, who isn’t looking away from his basket. Bruce is lost in some world as he chews mindlessly on his gyro. And Thor isn’t paying attention to anything more than the food in front of him as he double fists his falafel. It’s just Tony, jumpy from the battle, and Steve, a silent observer who won’t stop looking. 

Food finished, they all meander back to the tower, Steve and Thor righting flipped over cars that they pass by. Tony’s armor is heavy around him, the power barely able to maintain his ability to walk. He’s this close to slinking out of the armor and letting it fall to the ground, but his pride won’t let him. 

The tower is an absolute disaster, which he noticed the first time when they came to get Loki, but he really gets the idea upon second viewing. He sends the rest of the Avengers up the regular elevators, which are amazingly still working, as he boards his private elevator headed for the penthouse. 

At this point, he doesn’t care where any of them end up, so long as he gets a shower and some coffee. They can deal with the Tesseract and Loki tomorrow. 

\--

The next day they all meet on the street with Loki in an actual muzzle. Tony thinks it looks kind of kinky, but since Loki is adopted, if they wanted to get down that way, it’s not technically wrong. They’re all in civvies, Steve looking as old man as he possibly can with his worn looking jacket and striped shirt. Selvig carries the Tesseract to give to Thor so it can go back to Asgard. If you had asked Tony though, the Tesseract belonged to him through his father. But… he’s willing to see it off the planet at this point. More trouble than it’s worth. 

Thor and Loki stand across from one another and activate the power of the Tesseract to go to their Realm. In a haze of blue light the brothers disappear into the aether. 

The rest of the Avengers are left arranging transportation and cars, Natasha passing Bruce his bag as he gets into Tony’s car while Clint and Natasha get into hers. He’s done everything to avoid Steve, who is still lingering in the background, seemingly waiting for something. Skirting around Nat, Tony hops into his car. 

“Stark!” It grates, hearing Steve’s voice. He just wants to go, and get out of here, but he’s as trapped as if Rogers had cornered him. 

“Capsicle,” he replies, leaning over the side door and giving his best impression of a carefree billionaire who’d much rather be somewhere else, but is in the mood to be indulgent, if only for a moment. 

“What’s the plan now?” Steve doesn’t bat an eyelash at Tony’s nickname, and that makes him even more worried. Just because they fought a battle together and won, does not make them friends. Rogers had seen to that already. And yeah, for sure Tony would like it to be different, yet he also wanted his very own low aspect ratio spherical tokamak so he could study plasma when he was ten, but we don’t always get what we want from Santa.

“Well, my five year plan is to maybe go out for ice cream this afternoon?” He’s baiting Steve now, but it doesn’t seem to be working, and he hears Bruce sigh next to him in the front seat. 

“That’s how it’s going to be then?” Steve smiles, and it’s like the sun rising, his blond lashes catching the light as his eyes crinkle in amusement. Now, Tony knows for certain that the Captain had never found him that funny before. No, Tony was totally annoying. That was the way the world worked. 

“Look, I’m just being honest. That excuses me from tact, right?” He’s not sure what’s going on, but he doesn’t like it at all. Steve looks too good on that motorcycle to be real, and he’s being nice to Tony. The world isn’t right. Maybe he died in that wormhole. 

“I don’t think it does Tony.” Bruce awkwardly chuckles. 

“You know, I put an awful lot into not offending people, considering how bored I am,” he mumbles back at Bruce. “Fine! Just meet me at the tower when you’re done with your spiritual journey to find yourself!” Because what else is Steve doing? Zen and the Art of Motorcycle maintenance? Oh god, what if he has a split personality and that’s why he’s being nice? No way to tell. 

“What?” He realizes he spoke his last thoughts out loud and ok, now he knows Rogers heard him. Probably even the first part of what he said to Bruce as well. 

“Just come to the tower whenever!” 

Steve nods at Tony and stares at him for a moment before tossing his leg over the side of his motorcycle. Tony doesn’t wait for him to rev up before putting his own car into gear. 

“Do you really have to antagonize him?” Bruce asks. 

“Yes. I really have to. Not doing so was making me unhappy.” 

\--

It’s a couple weeks before Rogers makes it back to the tower, and he’s the last of the Avengers to arrive. Clint and Natasha hadn’t so much as moved in as they had simply started appearing in Tony’s penthouse, which was all the way clean, but only halfway finished being repaired. The two assassins don’t seem to care as they proceed to eat all his poptarts and other various snacks. 

Of course Bruce is already there, set up in his own personal lab, and once he realizes that Nat and Clint are present he starts finding his way up to the penthouse too. 

The only time he’d ever lived with roommates like this was with Rhodey in college, and it kind of brings him back. It’s easy at that point to convert the penthouse area into a common space for everyone. The gym is already set up on the floor below this one, and it’s Iron Man proof, which means it will be Cap proof as well. 

When Steve finally arrives, he doesn’t quite slot into place in the same way everyone else had. There’s a distance about him, some invisible wall that separates him from the rest of the Avengers. Most of the time he can be found in the gym, punching away at a sandbag. 

It’s not like Tony wants Cap to talk to him, but he kind of does. Instead, he gets “the talk” from Natasha about hiding his identity as Iron Man. 

“It’s ok, you know. To be Omega and a hero.” They’re sitting on the couches after Clint has gone to bed. Star Trek is playing on the TV and everyone else is otherwise occupied elsewhere or asleep. She tosses what remains of the popcorn into her mouth as she eyes him up. 

“If I’m a hero, I’m a hero. Not— not an Omega hero. And that’s a big ‘if’ on the hero part.” Howard rises up in the ghost of a memory of how disappointed he was in Tony’s being an Omega. And Tony doesn’t hate his designation because of his father, but because of what the designation is. Natasha doesn’t know, or understand. 

“You know, I had this thing put into my head. This dream. And it seems normal at the time, it seems right. I was an Avenger. That I was more than what they made me. That—” she pauses, “I want you to understand, the red room only takes Omegas as trainees. It’s their long held secret.”

“Nat—” He doesn’t know why he says anything at all. The truth is falling down on him, and he feels miserable for not seeing Nat sooner. 

“No, let me finish. I’m sorry I lied to you once, and then again. I’m not Alpha, or beta. Or maybe even an Omega. Not anymore.” Her eyes are piercing green in the low light, a contrast to the lighter tones he’s seen during the day, as if her eyes change colors under their own power. 

“In the red room where I was trained, where I was raised— they have a graduation ceremony. They sterilize you, glands and all. It’s efficient, and for Omegas, our hormone levels drop, but not to beta levels. The underbelly of the Omega nature is that we are the fiercest, over Alphas or betas. An Alpha must incapacitate instead of kill any home invader in the United States. But Omegas can kill to protect the home, and the law will never prosecute. Deep down, society doesn’t want to acknowledge that Omegas reign supreme in capacity for sheer violence. So in the Red room, they take the one thing from you that matters more than a mission, more than a mate, and leave only the rage behind. It makes it easier. The killing. The hiding. You still think you’re the only Omega on the team who has issues with their designation? You’re not alone Tony.” 

Tony feels stricken by her announcement. He’s been so set on hating his biology, that he never reckoned what it would be like to be given the choice to be without it, completely. Removing his uterus wouldn’t make him less Omega, but the loss of his glands would have stunted him. It would be like removing a limb. 

“You know you could still—”

“Adopt? Mate? Tony, there are terrorist cells more nurturing than I am,” her face softened, and she continued, “that’s lovely of you to say, but I’m happy with how I am. And not because I was forced to accept it.”

“I’m sorry, I fucked up. I never meant to imply that you weren’t—ok—whole, without those things.” Nat looks soft in this light, and he can see it now, the gentle curve of her jawline, the baby softness of her forearms that’s been sharpened by effort. She hides so well, in plain sight. She’s an Alpha, a beta, and Omega, and none of these things at all. 

“I know Tony.” She pats his leg before getting up, and he thinks he sees the silvery line of a scar on her neck that he should have really noticed. 

\--

In the time before Rogers showed up, Tony worked tirelessly on practicing disobeying Alpha commands. Recordings don’t work as well as in person, so he rigs up a hologram of Steve and the records from the com. 

Omega, no. Replays again and again. Tony shivers and endures it, forming a callus against the intrusion. There’s no way to tell if it will hold up in person, but there aren’t any other options. He’s got to have his shit together by the time Steve returns.

It’s not even a question in Tony’s mind as to whether Rogers will show up or not. He will. There’s something tense and unspoken between them now that a man like Rogers won’t let alone. No. He’ll be back. 

Which, Tony has never been less glad to be proven right when Rogers shows up on a late afternoon, JARVIS kindly informing Tony that Steve was loitering with his bike outside. Tony sends someone to direct him to the garage while he makes himself scarce. 

“Nat, can you show Cap to his room? He’s coming up the elevator now.” She gives him that sideways glance of hers and he feels like he’s transparent under it, the things he doesn’t want her to know swimming around, exposed. “Please Nat? Pretty please with new knives on top and more widow’s bites in the middle?”

“Add a retractable garrote, and I’ll agree to let you run off and hide.” 

“Done! Bye!” Tony scurries off to the workshop. He should really call Pepper. Pepper is the kind of friend who’s there when blood is in the air. He needs that. 

“Tony? The contractors are working as fast as they can—”

“It’s not about the contractors, sweetcheeks.” 

“Oh? Well, what’s it about then? Your heat? Tony, have you even contacted—” 

“No! It’s— Pepper, the Captain is back. He’s back, and, well.” 

“Oh-kay. What does that have to do with you? He’s an Avenger, and I watched the two of you on the battlefield. It seems like you get along.” 

“Yeah, it’s hard when two people who have an otherwise perfect relationship fucking hate each other. Though I guess I didn’t tell you about the helicarrier, did I?” He proceeds to do so while Pepper listens sympathetically. 

“I think you should give him a chance, Tony. I really do.” 

“Mr. Perfect? My childhood crush and obsession? No.” And that was it, wasn’t it? When there were no good role models, when his father thought there was still the possibility he was Alpha or beta, Tony worshipped Captain America. And it didn’t stop when he presented. His fantasies changed, where Captain America would come back, talk to his father, meet Tony and then— well. He’d ask for Tony, bond, and bite him. Even when he had hooked up with Tiberius Stone, who had hurt Tony in that careless way of his, it was like the paint had scratched, and underneath was the Captain and Tony’s love for that ideal, waiting. 

And Steve is that ideal. When Steve had closed the portal, he’d made the right call. A call that if the situation had been reversed, Tony’s not sure he could have made. Even knowing now what waited beyond the portal. There’s an inaccessibility to the Captain. He’s beautiful, but like all things beautiful, he is indifferent. Tony wishes being a good person could erase the terrible things he’s done. Steve is so far above Tony in morality and place, that it makes no sense for Tony to admire the man. He can’t ever aspire to him, can’t be seen as a viable option for mating or close friendship. Not that he’d want to hitch wagons with Mr. Self Righteous. He wasn’t that much of a masochist. It hurts anyway. 

They talk for a while more, Pepper insisting it’s going to be ok. And not surprisingly, it helps. She’s always been soothing. Tony’s body is still tense with frenetic energy, however. The only way to excise it is to invent. So he lets Pepper go so she can do the work that he detests doing. 

He’s done with Nat’s new toys within a day before moving onto providing Clint with endless practice arrows. Then he spends time working on making a decent pair of pants for Bruce when he hulks out. He does not think about how the same fabric could have good implications for the Captain’s uniform. No, he saves that for last, like the procrastinator perfectionist he is. His identity has always been wrapped up in the things he creates for others. He’s not sure he could stand the rejection, so he’s got to make anything for the Captain look impeccable. 

That’s more than enough time to stay away from public areas. Which means it takes a week for Rogers to corner him, and he must have solicited someone for help. Probably Natasha, that creeper, which is genius but also cruel and unusual. 

“Tony, I just want to say thank you for having us at the tower and maybe— maybe clear the air between us?” Rogers looks so earnest that Tony imagines for a moment that he means it. That it’s not just a tactic to get everyone working together smoothly. Thing is, he’s willing to play the part. Especially just to have Rogers look at him with something that isn’t disdain for a moment before Tony ruins things, like he always does. 

“All water under the bridge Caperoni and cheese.” He waves his hand and takes a tentative step forward. God, Steve is beautiful. In all his avoidance, he’d somehow forgotten that the man was flawless. 

“Enough with the nicknames.” The goodwill drifts away from Steve’s face, and Tony forlornly remembers a time when he didn’t have to deal with people.

“Jeez, what crawled up your ass?” He tries to make his escape then, but Steve steps in front of him, all several hundred pounds of muscle blocking his path. It makes the Omega in him quake with fear and lust. He’s going to be trapped, held down. Tony is in a straight panic, and he thinks about a cave, with men on the other side. He’s disoriented, and he suddenly feels hot all over, his glands starting to sting with tension. 

“Cap, why can’t you just leave it alone? I don’t think we’ve ever had a conversation that doesn’t end in a fight, and I don’t see it changing any time soon.” 

“If you had an ounce of respect, it would change.” Steve’s eyes are a dark blue, and he looms above Tony now, arms crossed in a defensive position. If anyone needs defending, it’s Tony. 

He’s not going to stand for this though. Which is why he takes a cocky stand, tilts his chin up, hips uneven with as much smarm as he can muster while he feels like absolute garbage. 

“Ok. Well. Relationships are about compromise. So let’s agree to disagree with the stupid shit you keep saying and I can be on my way.” It’s like waving a red flag, and Steve puffs up even more, arms uncrossing, his jaw so tense it looks like he could crack nuts with it. Of course that makes him think about Steve putting his mouth near Tony, but the idea of being chomped on shrivels any sort of arousal he may have had. 

“Omega.” The command is just steps away from overwhelming, which he is almost hysterically grateful for. 

“Ah-ah Cappy. That’s not going to get you what you want anymore. Learn to use your words like a big boy.” He watches Steve clench his fists and unclench them, eyes glued to Tony’s face. Steve would love to put his hands on Tony’s neck, make him submit, Tony can feel it. He half wants the man to try it, maybe see if he can escape. And if he runs, Cap will track him down, and then—and then—he kills that train of thought. 

“I’m going to the gym. I need you to know I’m not staying here full time. I have an apartment in Brooklyn. We’ll talk later.” Tony sees Steve deflate, all of the anger subsiding into something sadder and frustrated. It makes him want to soothe Steve, but then he remembers he doesn’t care at all. Steve is bringing all this upon himself. They’re fine. Both of them are fine just being teammates and not needing to get along outside the battlefield. This is as good as it gets and as good as it ever has to be. Steve doesn’t have to live here either. Not if he doesn’t want to. Yeah, it’s good. 

Things don’t improve from there, but Tony thinks it’s still a fair equilibrium. The worst times are when they complete a mission. 

“You did excellent work, Stark.” The Captain goes out of his way deliberately to tell Tony he did a good job. As if he can make up for every other thing outside of their working relationship. But Tony can see that Steve isn’t all the way there, that he’s just doing this by rote. And Tony hates false platitudes. He already lives in a world of materialism and fakery. 

“And I can see that by exactly zero indicators on your face.” Tony doesn’t look up from his phone as he mumbles, but he knows that Steve heard and he knows the face Steve is making. Plump lips forced into a line that looks cut across his face, eyes stony with flecks of grey, and his brows furrowed. Tony doesn’t ever stare; gaze too long into the abyss, the abyss also gazes into you. 

“Tony.” Just one word, and he glances up at Steve before he examines the rest of the Avengers. They’re acting like they’re not paying attention, but Tony swears this is their weekly entertainment. 

“Look, just stop approving of me. You’re ruining it.” He gets up and leaves before Steve can dismiss him. Rogers always hates that. It gives Tony a little thrill. 

The worst time though, is when he ends up in medical. It’s not even the mission’s fault. It’s his damn body. It’s picked the worst time to start displaying some of the more fun symptoms of his failure to have his heats as normal. 

Thankfully, everyone is kept out while he seizes in the hospital bed, teeth grinding against a mouth guard until his jaw aches. They pump him full of sedatives and anti-inflammatories as they tsk over his bold stupidity. 

When Tony leaves the hospital, he feels Steve’s shadow, even though the man isn’t present. 

Tony is never, ever going to tell him what’s going on. 

The thing is, all of these missions and general Avengers things would be fine if Tony’s heat weren’t a factor. He’s orchestrating his coming out as Iron Man to the public soon, the Avengers are all settled, his company’s stock is recovered from his cessation of weapons production, they’re the heroes of New York, and that social cache means something. The only thing is his heat. Which normally he’d drag his feet on, but he’s run out of suppressants, and he knows Fury isn’t going to give him more. So he’s resolved, -ish. He’s going to make a play for suppressants, but settle for a mediocre alpha-fuck. Everyone is happy, Tony can forget all about it, and life goes back to normal. 

This is what leads him to Fury’s office on a Sunday, because the guy doesn’t seem to exist outside of SHIELD. Tony thinks he has a perch where he sleeps like an overgrown bat.

Tony sits with his knees bouncing up and down in Fury’s guest chair while the man in question is prone behind his desk, fingers steepled in judgement. Of course, Tony starts to lean the chair back just so, eliciting squeaks, while he stares Fury down. 

Should he tap his fingers as well, just to multiply the annoyance factor? Yeah, yeah he should. 

After what feels like ten, but was more like two minutes of ogling, Tony breaks the silence. 

“I need a drink for this. It’s gotta be 8am somewhere.” 

“You’re not here for a social call. You’re here for a conversation we’re going to have.” 

“Conversation was invented to conceal reality. In case that was lost on you, we talk in order to lie. So I don’t want to hear it.” 

Fury stays silent again, waiting. 

“Ok, fine. I want my pills and then I’m going home. Conversation had.” 

“About that. After New York, we can’t give you any more without you going on a scheduled heat, and since I don’t trust you to do so on your own time, I insist you use our heat service.” Fury unlaces his hands and opens a drawer that Tony can’t see, but presumably contains scent bags, since the one-eyed wonder starts pulling plastic baggies of cloth onto his desk. 

“Been there, done that,” Tony says, eyeing the bags with obvious disdain. “I can see myself through my own heat. What, do you think self-pleasure is a sin Fury? Like laughter is for you? Worse comes to worst, I can just burn in hell with the rest of the fornicators after I die. Look, just trust me—” He can’t actually see himself through his own heat. They haven’t synthesized a way to substitute skin contact and Alpha pheromones that could manage to sate an Omega’s heat. 

“Last time I trusted someone, I lost an eye.” Fury let that one have its own space for a while, while Tony contemplated how to give a thank you card or a glitter bomb to someone he’d never met for making Fury a paranoid nanny-agent. “Now, unfortunately for you, we need Iron Man, and for that we need Tony Stark to get his head out of his ass and manage his health. There’s no negotiation here, you want to stay on the Avengers, you’ll take care of this. As we agreed.”

“Maybe I don’t want to be on the Avengers anymore. Not if I have to sit next to the Captain.” 

“Quit pulling each other’s pig tails then! Most of the insults traded come from your end Stark, or do you generally live in a state of denial?” Fury was smiling now, even though he was wrong, because Tony did not pull people’s hair unless it was consensual pulling. Which given that his little crush on the Captain had been taken out behind the shed and shot, there would be no hair-pulling on Cap’s thick, blond hair. Ever. 

“You can wipe that dick-eating grin off your face, Fury. Fine.” He snatched up a bag and inhaled deeply. No. Not that one, and not that one. 

Tony tore through each bag with more fury than Fury, inhaling and tossing them all over the head of SHIELD’s floor. Nick seemed like the kind of guy who didn’t hire someone to clean due to paranoia, and it gave Tony a special pleasure to think of Nick having to pick up after him. 

At least, until he encountered The Bag. 

Tony had always expected that finding the right scent would feel like Spanish Inquisition. He’d feel attacked, trapped by some aggressive scent that reminded him of home, of Howard. 

Instead it was being sucked back into a childhood that had never existed, where he felt the simplicity of being safe and loved. Something that he’d never experienced himself, but somehow his body knew that this was the physical manifestation of. It was that first cup of coffee in the morning. The way it felt to put on the suit and dive off the tower, knowing he would be caught by the thrusters before ever falling. 

A promise, a guarantee, a truth. 

The bag stayed pressed to his face moments too long; Nick gently reached out to take the package from Tony’s clawed hand, his single eye knowing. Tony watched the bag move away from him in slow motion, a wistful future spiraling down and away. 

He was ok. Tony was ok with it. He’d never spent a heat with someone, and while he knew in concept what he was missing, it didn’t matter. He wanted it not to matter. 

“No. I don’t care. This is not a part of my life Fury. I don’t do heats, and by not doing them, I am not defined by them.” His voice is a croak, an utter betrayal of his underlying thoughts. Because Tony does want. And it does matter. 

This isn’t happening. Thousands of scents, of alphas, and a fucking intelligence agency, a cabal of spies, happens to have the right one. The equivalent of Tony finding a soul mate, but for sexing. 

Fury holds the bag delicately, while Tony glares at the package. He’s already been outed as caring too much, what was one more mistake? 

Fuck, he wants to know who the alpha was. Maybe meet him, maybe he’d—

“You’re not allowed to die before SHIELD gets what it needs. I’m not above calling your CEO and ratting you out.” Fury says, his tone twisty and more sincere than the content of his words. Like he, they, needed Tony, not just Iron Man. Like Tony deserved to live, and not exist as a tool for manufacturing weapons. He supposed this was Fury’s gift; no real leverage but saving Tony’s life. 

For which Tony was expected to be suitably grateful. But he wasn’t going to be. He’d been ready to accept the Encephalitis due to heat inflammation that would surely put him in a coma, if not, give him brain damage beyond recovery. 

No, he can’t fall into the false belief that Fury is doing him a kindness. They’ll hold it over him. That was what SHIELD did. But it was something he understood, and could handle. 

There was no point in asking who the anonymous alpha was, because Tony was going to find out. He didn’t even care about going in blind. He would, and he’d leave a message for himself with JARVIS about who it was. They’d hit him with the serum that made you forget, but it wouldn’t matter. Nothing ever stopped Tony when he was determined enough. Then he could go back to filling his vast spiritual voids with tech. 

“If I did this, I wouldn’t want to remember, because it’s not me. It’s just this body, this biology. And I have a right to never have to knowingly see the person who gets me through my heat, ever.” He lies. It’s a conversation, right? 

“A unique perspective, one that I’m inclined to help you out with.”

\--  
Tony stands in the shower, counting his Fibonacci sequence tiles that he had custom laid into the walls. He wishes it were the gala tonight that’s making him anxious, but he’s consumed with thoughts about his impending heat. He’s worked most of the day, blasting music and generally banging loudly at his equipment. The silence is unnerving to him, so he avoids it, and with it, any self examination. 

“JARVIS, give some Black Sabbath and make it loud.” Thinking about this is going to give him hives, he just knows it. 

When the music cuts out he knows that Pepper or Rhodey are trying to get him out of the shower, so he acquiesces and hops out, toweling off in front of the mirror. He looks lean, almost anemic, but his hips are still Ganymede-narrow and his skin is olive toned, the bones of his clavicle jutting out at appealing angles. It’s not much, he’s never been much, but he isn’t un-fuckable. Sighing, he throws on a pair of boxers and picks up a robe, strolling out into his bedroom. 

Which is occupied. 

“Finally! We have twenty to get you presentable.” Pepper bounces off the bed, carrying a suit. Tony shrugs out of the robe and opens his arms wide as if to hug Pepper. 

“Oh you big baby, you can dress yourself,” Rhodes says from his position at the bar. 

“But mom, dad.” Tony grins as he manhandles the undershirt on. He almost mangles the pants until Pepper steadies him, and the undershirt gets buttoned incorrectly at first, which Pepper also fixes. 

“Tony, when was this meeting with Fury?” Pepper is hustling him into his jacket now, turning the cuffs of his dress shirt inward before securing them with a pair of glitzy cufflinks. He let himself be dressed now, marveling at her efficiency. Tonight was a gala fundraiser celebrating the successful cleanup of New York. This newly opened ballroom would play host to the most riveting persons in New York tonight, likely including some SHIELD agents. Hopefully not Fury. 

“Oh, you’re still tracking my every move? I thought we agreed to move on.” 

“Move on from what? I’m still your CEO; I’m not going anywhere Tony.” She pulls the lines of the suit straight, looking back and forth to make sure it’s all on according to the rules of Pepper. 

“Hey, I’m also right here. I think I deserve to know how this meeting went.” Rhodes is now flopped on a couch, his legs over the edge of the arm, relaxed. 

“Rhodey, Rhodes, Rhoderino. I already have Pepper on my case. Do you have to make this a circle jerk?” 

“Yes, I believe I will grab this topic by the dick. What happened Tony?” Rhodey was already dressed for action, his date for the evening. The navy suit was slimming on him, almost like his standard issue Air Force uniform, but with way less stick up the ass. 

“Man, you both are real downers. I can’t believe I made out with you guys.” It’d been years, but Tony had gotten a few drunken kisses with Rhodey at MIT. And well, there was Pepper, obviously. Those had been the good days, before Afghanistan, his impending heat, and the Avengers took a giant crap on his perpetual good mood. 

“Tony.” Pepper sounded chiding as she affixed the bow tie in the front. 

“Fine. I found— I found a really good scent.” He mumbled, pulling away to fidget with his lapels. 

Pepper and Rhodey shared a look that he did not like at all. 

“Hey, stop scheming. I’m not getting together with whoever it is. It’s just sex and that’s it. Now can I get a drink?” They were still looking at each other, eyes all faux innocence and things they thought they knew about Tony. 

“Sir, it’s a little early.” Rhodey raised his glass to the ceiling, whiskey, neat, at JARVIS’s words. 

“Cheers!” 

“Just some of the good scotch, JARVIS. I’m not a hobo.” Would his— this alpha, distract him from drinking? He glanced at Rhodey, taking a sip of his drink. The other man grinned at him and Tony thought about what it would look like to replace the person in the chair with his alpha. His, and only his. With eyes for him and the whole nine yards. It could have been the scotch, but he felt warmed, hopeful. 

“Now, which of these shoes best conveys my love for schmoozing?”

\--

It was possible that it was only an omega thing, but Tony detested colognes and perfumes. And for as much as he hated them, he always had to show up to these gigs and endure it. He liked to scent people naturally, and all these artificial means and methods of hiding or accentuating scent caused his natural responses to go haywire. He didn't know how anyone dealt with it. 

Tony knew that the places he went and the people he often saw were beautiful, or considered so. Sweeping arches with soft frescos covered the vaulted ceiling of the event hall. He found it less charming than the sleek and modern designs he came up with, but respected that art was a form of power. It was why he had Pepper decorate the walls of the tower exclusively. 

Honestly, he was surprised they got it all in here on time for the event. Seeing the same old routine of decor and dresses made Tony feel like somewhere, someplace, Loki had never happened. 

Rhodey walked at his side, uniform crisp and gorgeous in the navy blue suit that Tony had not-so-secretly altered and made just a bit better. The fabric looked exactly the same as the standard-issue, but the quality was all in the texture and malleability of the fabric. Pride surged through him to have such a friend as Rhodey. Throughout all these years they’d been together, he’d always shown up for Tony. Been there. 

Sometimes it was almost enough to forget Stane. 

Which reminded him that the Avengers were not only still miffed that he’d hidden his identity, but they didn’t like the big reveal he was planning either. Clint had known Iron Man was Tony already, that was obvious. So it was more accurate to say that the most, maybe the only person besides Bruce, that was disappointed had been the Captain. Tony got a special kick out of making him a little sad. Uppity little Omega that he was, putting on the big, bad, and dangerous suit and kickin’ it with the rest of the Alpha and assassin heroes. Yeah, Tony loved watching him swallow that one. 

Now that Tony had time and distance from the events in New York, he knew the look Steve had given him over shawarma was the full force of America’s disapproval. Steve didn’t like the way Tony handled missions. Didn’t like it when he got injured. Always found time to try and bother Tony, as if he had a homing beacon for wherever Tony was. 

Yeah, America did disapprove. 

The reveal that an Omega had carried a nuke into a black hole would be trepidatious to most politicians who hovered in the moderate category for Omega rights. It had only been thirty or so years ago that Omegas could own property. There’d never been an Omega president however, or more than a few token Omegas serving public office. An Omega hero would be a culture shock. 

He could still hear the guttural, metallic shrieks of the Chitauri soldiers, hear the whir of their speeders coming towards him as he rose up to meet their attack. He remembered the moment he thought that maybe this wouldn’t be as bad. They could shoot fish in a barrel, even if the barrel was New York. 

He shuts the memories away. They lead to places he’d rather not go, realities he only wants to confront when he’s in his lab, working on a way to prevent them. 

Of course, the Avengers are here at the fundraiser. Excepting Bruce, who would likely cause a riot if he made an appearance. Tony hooks his arm around Rhodey and steers them straight to the bar. 

“Starting early and hard I see,” Rhodey comments when Tony orders a double shot of scotch with a few chips of ice. 

“I need one shot for America, and one for the rest of them. And if it gets really bad, keep me away from the tequila, will you?” Tony’s tone is easy, but Rhodey understands the implication that Tony needs to be on his toes tonight. 

God, even Fury is here, wearing exactly what he usually wears. The man is deep in conversation with Agent Hill, who looks rather fashionable in an emerald getup. 

Clint and Natasha are shadows at Fury’s back, Clint in a plain agent-y suit while Natasha sports a red that has even Tony’s cheeks heating from the daring cut of it. She must be corseted and sewn into that thing, he reasons. 

Of course, Fury spots him and disengages with Hill, making his way over to Tony. He darts around to look for his honey bear, only to see him hamming it up with some Air Force bros in the corner. Longingly, he searches for Pepper, and sees her engaged with Sunset Bain. And he’s too kind to spoil that kind of fun for her. 

Soon enough, Fury stands in front of him, flanked by his flunkies, including Captain America, who must have slipped in out of nowhere, if that was even possible for the muscly hidebound man. 

“You sure you should be indulging in that Stark?” It’s inevitable that Cap speaks first, narrowed blue eyes glancing at the glass in Tony’s hand like it has personally offended him. 

“Yeah, Alcohol is a real shit show. It’s like the TLC of beverages. Hence why I drink it.” He raises his glass to the bunch of them. On accident, he meets Cap’s gaze, and locks in for a moment on the man’s eyes. They glitter with irritation, and something inscrutable. 

“Stark, we have to talk about how we’re going to manage your reveal as Iron Man to the public. You should have talked to us before planning your reveal to the press.” Tony wonders if Fury likes having Captain America as his attack dog for Tony. 

“Uh no, as thrilling as that conversation would be for you, we don’t have to discuss a thing.” 

“It’s not just you anymore that’s at stake. SHIELD can’t abide by a scandal, and you are scandal-prone. If you—” Fury starts.

“Did you get that suit tailored Captain, or did they paint it onto you?” He interrupts. 

“Stark!” Fury barks. 

“What? I do not control the speed at which my motivation to listen to you dies.”

“You may be a genius Stark, but you sure are an asshole.” Clint stalks off then, Natasha slipping into step behind him, leaving Fury glaring at Tony. Tony throws on a lascivious little smile right back, which causes Fury to huff and follow Clint and Natasha. That left Great America, the emotional rollercoaster that was Steve Rogers, to continue focusing on Tony. 

He felt a slither of guilt under his skin, the kind that only Steve could make him feel. 

“Why do you always have to be like this Tony? Do you have any self-respect?” 

“Respectfully, fuck off. Look, if I am a genius asshole, I invent the uninventable—genius—, while I repeatedly verbally assault people in my personal space, and sometimes not in my personal space—asshole. I am a genius asshole. That is my way. And I may be misunderstood by polite society, but as a genius asshole, my dramatic tensions respect the standard semantics for adjectives and nouns. And I’m proud of it.” Talking was a way of avoiding the conversation that Steve wanted to have, which was one Tony did not need to hear. 

“You shouldn’t be. You’re always making a mockery of things. Perhaps if you spent less time coming up with your next joke, you’d be better trained on the field.” 

“We get it Cap, you care deeply about the things that you care about. But it’s not my fault you won’t completely move into the tower like the rest of the team where we train. Keep staying in your shitty Brooklyn apartment, but don’t call it my problem when the best workout you get is destroying SHIELD property.” 

Pepper sashayed over, if nigh running in heels could be called that. A little late, but better than never. 

“Oh-kay Tony, let’s get you another drink, yes?” 

“Buh-bye mon Capitan!”


	5. Chapter 5

After the ridiculous gala, Tony is exhausted. Frustrated, too. Fury reached out the very next day with cryptic instructions letting him know that they’d tell him where to go the day of. It was a lot of protection for one measly heat. Tony would have been suspicious if he didn’t think that some of that protection was for his sake. 

When the day arrives, Tony showers and puts on some loose fitting clothes. He usually shows up in style to this sort of thing. But no, SHIELD, Pepper, and even Rhodey suggested he park a Subaru just out of town and have Happy take him there, whilst shaking the paparazzi. 

Three hours later through LA traffic, he stands in front of a nondescript building whose architecture looked like the 70s vomited all over it. Checking the address again, he strolls up like he belongs and pulls open the worn handle on the glass door. Inside isn’t much different than out, with hard edges, wood paneling, leftover decor from a time when people might have visited this office for car insurance or to see the dentist. Even the scents of humans that linger there are old. Heat makes every Omega’s sense of smell go haywire. Something, something finding Alphas something, something ensuring there were no predators in the area before heat. 

Tony expects the air to be stale and the furniture dusty, but the place is more like a time capsule. Rather than indulge in this blast from the past, Tony goes looking for suite 105, keeping in mind the code he’d been given. 

Fury had said he would be thirty minutes earlier than the Alpha, to get his bearings. Tony also shouldn’t bother trying to get in sooner; his code wouldn’t work. Tony didn’t want to admit that half an hour was on the lower end of calming the panic attack he could feel just under his skin. Which could also be his heat. Or both.

It was coming on strong now, like a cancer of the soul where the only chemotherapy was going to be a good dicking down. Tony wondered how this was his life. How in all this modernity he hadn’t been able to find a way to circumvent a most basic biological system in order to give himself a choice in all this. Now he was here, standing outside an ugly door with security code that would take him into what was presumably a sex dungeon that, shudder, Fury had probably overseen the putting together of. Soon after, a random alpha was going to show up and ask for his consent, and Tony wasn’t sure if he wanted to give it. 

Maybe he’d just tell Pepper that all his chickens were coming home to roost and he was ready for death. After which, she would murder him, and then murder him again, before marching him straight back here. 

So really, he could just skip all that yelling and such and hop on the knot carousel like a good little Omega. 

“Here goes nothing.” Tony entered the numbers and pushed open the green-lit lock. Behind, he found what looked like a glamorous hospital room. Sheets were folded up on a shelf in preparation for maximum fluid discharge, bottles of water and snacks stood at the ready, the bed was bolted to the floor, and a couch with its back to the window. 

Tony sat down on the bed, and proceeded to remove his socks and shoes. Socks during sex were the most unsexy thing he could think of. He didn’t care that some study had said reaching orgasm was more difficult without socks. His body was going to take care of that for him anyway, he thought with disdain. 

After undressing to the level he was comfortable with, which was only sock and belt removal, he built a tentative nest on the bed. Fluffed pillows, several blankets and a few snacks tucked underneath. He didn’t want to invest too much into it; it’s not like he gave a shit about what the Alpha would think. But it was necessary for a sense of calm once an Alpha was available and triggered the rest of his heat. 

If he was unlucky, he’d trigger a corresponding rut in the Alpha. Which meant if the Alpha stepped into the room, and Tony didn’t like him, it may not matter at all. They’d have to bang no matter what. Biology really was a fucking cunt. 

Pensive, he ended up looking out a window at the unkempt landscaping, couch to his back.

Time flies when you’re this close to freaking out, Tony thought when he heard the door handle rattle. 

The door opened, and an Alpha stepped through.

“No, nope, this isn’t happening. You are not happening to me.” When Steve walked in, Tony didn’t just know he fucked up, he knew he was about to be put on a solid time out pinioned on all-American-dick. He wasn’t an idiot. He knew he’d rejected everyone but the one scent, and without the scent cover he developed for SHIELD on either of them, Rogers’ smell, the one he’d tried so hard earlier to get a whiff of, wafted around the room, mixing with his. 

Finally, finally he knew what Steve smelled like, and he’d never hated it more. 

Because it was good. Clean sweat, vetiver like a summer’s day, and the woody scent of fresh pressed paper. 

From behind the couch, Tony felt his cock stiffen in response, a gob of slick cooly trailing its way out of his hole that felt stretched with disuse. A contradiction in terms, but one that any Omega would understand. 

He needed a knot, and he’d pick any knot but Steve’s right at that moment. Steve didn’t smell so good at all. His instincts, which had been quiet initially, roared through his body, up and up, until his whole head felt swallowed into a miasma of want. He had to keep it together. But it was so hard, his control fraying at the edges with every gulp of air. 

“They said you’ll die without help, Tony. And you’re the one that picked me, this—” 

“Lies. Bald faced lies. One, I can find someone else, and two, I did not pick you—” He needed to stop himself, to escape this. He wanted to rend the Captain to pieces. Push him into making throaty growls on the side of his neck, see what other noises he could wring out of this Alpha. 

“Then what is this then?” Steve says, pumping out an intoxicating burst of _heat-fuck-home-want-lust_ and Tony’s knees buckled under the weight of it, his chin already lifting so he could draw in more of the smell. Too late, he tucked his head back in, but Steve had seen. 

“Tony—” Steve looked pained, yet there was no way Tony had sympathy for any Alpha who was told they would have the privilege of spending heat with an Omega. What other purpose did Alphas even serve, anger tainting his own scent causing it to go slightly acrid. 

“I won’t go willingly. I don’t care what papers I signed, I’m not consenting right now. This isn’t happening.” His fingers had a death grip on the fabric of the couch, knees propped against the wooden spine of the furniture. Yet his body was all betrayal, and as Steve took a few tentative steps forward, he could smell the rut already beginning on Steve. 

If it was only Tony, he might have been able to walk away. But a rut is as dangerous to an Alpha’s mind as not going into heat is to an Omega’s body. Without suppressants, or an Omega, an Alpha could get easily locked into a feral state. 

There were treatments for it, but the quickest way to resolve it was spending time with an Omega. And with Captain America, well, Tony didn’t know what the serum would do. 

“Tony, I’m sorry. If you don’t want this— I’ll— I’ll leave.” Steve folded in on himself, somehow managing to look small, defeated, his scent turned sharp with disappointment. 

“You can’t leave. You know as well as I that you just hit rut.” Tony stepped closer, unsure of what his own intentions were. Steve bloomed, his body leaning forward and his scent changed to something hopeful, something _safe-warm-safe._

“And you… You can’t die Tony. I know everything hasn’t been aces between us, but I _do_ respect you, as a teammate. I’ve—” One step forward, two steps back, though Steve had come closer in the meantime.

“—respect me? You can’t stop criticizing every move I make on the field. Just last week, you glowered at me like I’d stolen your tiara at the beauty pageant when I went into a collapsing building to save some people _you_ were going to leave behind!” 

“At the expense of your life? That’s plain nuts Tony! If you can’t follow basic instructions—”

“—Oh what, I can’t be on the field? Yeah? Well what are you going to do about it?” 

“I’ll bench you Tony. I’ll sit you down on the sidelines—” Cap was in his face now, skin red and brows furrowed.

“You’re going to have to make me Steve. Make me, I dare you!” Steve closes the distance, which is smaller than he suspected, and grasps at Tony’s shoulders. Tony grabs his arms, holding tight to the tense biceps underneath. 

“Say it again, Tony. Say you don’t consent.” Steve breathed the words down his neck, the press of his body hot and heavy on his. He felt powerful, standing up to his Alpha. 

“What I want is for you to make. Me.” 

“Say yes first. Obey me just this once Tony. Just this time.” Tony swallowed: his pride, his rising desire for this. For Steve. 

Tony kisses Steve like he can’t not kiss him. He devours the very air in Steve’s mouth, licking into him, eager to reach teeth and tongue. When Tony finds it, he sucks filthily on the Alpha’s tongue. He wants to devote his whole mouth to worshiping Steve, and the very thought of licking the precum off Steve’s leaking cock before he buries it in Tony’s throat makes him shudder. 

Steve backs him to the bed, each shin pushing at his until the backs of his knees strike mattress, and he falls easily into the sheets. Tony turns over, and crawls towards his nest, his baser urges telling him to settle into it, show Steve he’d be good at providing, good at taking it so many times that there’s no possible way he’s not pregnant. Even if that won’t be happening due to his birth control pill that he took before arriving, his body is unconvinced by reality. 

Steve follows after, moving to drape his body over Tony. The soft fabrics of the bed squished against his right cheek as Steve’s thick hand came to press at his left temple. 

Tony has a burst of fear at being held down and he instinctively struggles. Steve, equally reflexive, presses down on Tony to prevent escape. Smartly, Steve had also hooked his legs over Tony’s heels, prepared for the kicks that Tony would have delivered, if he’d been quick on the uptake. As it stands, he loathes the lack of control even as his body screams that Steve has the right of it. 

Tony’s body wants the surety of no escape. 

“Say it Tony.” 

“What my body wants has nothing to do with me Steve. I’m saying yes, but this doesn’t mean I’ll be your obedient little wind up toy on the field.” Tony’s words come out sounding desperate, so much so he knows that Steve can hear it. Steve presses down harder, the rigid plane of his body over Tony’s back. It makes Tony shudder again in want, vibrating against Steve, and his anger spikes just as he bucks back and tries to wriggle out from underneath the unfairly large Alpha.

“The things you say— you make me want to put you down Tony. Show you that your place isn’t as terrible as you make it out to be. And I think you want that too; you just don’t like the look of submission on yourself. But don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone, Shellhead.”

“Fuck you.” Tony says as he tries to push back up against Steve again, only managing to wedge his hips into the curve of Steve’s sharply defined groin. The burgeoning hardness that rests between his ass cheeks makes his efforts feel futile, and if that didn’t make him slick up even more. 

“Understand this Tony, you said yes. As team leader, I cannot, will not, let you die. I know I’m not as clever as you, but I’m no fool. They showed me the papers that say you can’t go on with your suppressants. Let me do this for you. After, they’ll make us forget it ever happened.” Steve says, sounding unfairly reasonable. Which is enough for Tony to not listen at all. 

“And what if your serum eradicates the memory block, and you remember? I still won’t, Stevie. And won’t that just be awkward for you?” Tony says. Tony figures if he could just get a leg free, he could make a break for the door. Sure it was locked, but that was a very near future Tony’s problem. Screw Steve’s rut, but not literally. 

“Yes, it would be awkward, but I’d rather this than let the alternative happen.” Steve’s lips hover over his glands. Neither of them has moved from their position since Steve had pressed him to the bed. Steve’s hands, capable of such brutality that he’s never committed, linger on Tony’s flesh. Maybe he wants to do such wonderfully violent things upon Tony. Maybe he’ll clutch at Tony’s throat, pull his hair until Tony’s head rests on his shoulder, and tell him all the things he’s going to do to Tony. 

It feels good. It shouldn’t. Tony should hate this, but he had to give ole Cap some credit for knowing how to dominate and calm an uppity O. He can feel himself grow steadier despite his mind’s protests to the contrary. He longs to acquiesce, to not fight the reasonable proposal Steve is giving him. Why did it have to be that the Captain could make him so rationally irrational? Even on the field, Tony knows that sometimes he’s impudent, as the matchmaking service had said. And the matchmaking service he’d initially requested were even more right when they said he only did it to prove that the Alpha in question was worthy. That he’d stop, if proof were definitive. But worse, and more deeply, he won’t stop antagonizing Steve, because if he did, he’d have to obey. And if he obeyed, made himself open to a friendship with Steve, he wouldn’t be able to stand the rejection that would ensue. Much less if he attempted to be with Cap romantically, and found out the guy just pitied him. 

And no one wants a pity fuck, least of all Tony Stark. 

Even this one time, this one moment of giving in, no matter that SHIELD had ways of making them forget, Tony would know in his bones he had given in. He’ll figure it out. 

So, onward with the plan. He’ll hide some of Steve’s DNA inside his body somewhere before they dissolve the mucosal plug around his cervix, have JARVIS analyze the scent left over on him to recreate it so he’d have a baseline when he starts his search, break into SHIELD’s little heat house service, and identify Steve later. 

He wouldn’t like what he found, but for his own sake, he’d have to do it.

“Where are you Tony? Come back.” Steve says, his weight pressing down harder on Tony, if that were possible. If only it could have been uncomfortable, but instead Tony watches as Steve licks his own finger, and swipes it down the glands behind Tony’s left ear, giving Tony the most lovely shiver of _need_. 

“If I… cooperate, remember, you stay the fuck away from me when we’re on the field. Nothing changes, got it?” 

“Despite what you may think of me, I would never do it like this if you weren’t dying.” This. Tony, being this. Yeah, he knows all about how Captain America would never _stoop, slum_ it like this if Tony hadn’t been such a colossal fuck up. 

“Yes, yes fine, now if you’re done speaking, don’t you have a job to do?” Tony is vicious with his words. He wants Cap to know. It feels like walking into a minefield when he says it. He doesn’t know what comes next. 

When Cap lays teeth to skin, Tony’s toes curl up in a shiver, lust rippling out to each of his limbs. The man nips down his neck, avoiding glands and bone, sinking his teeth into the soft flesh there before moving back up to repeat the process. Tony feels tenderized, massaged into compliance. 

It makes a pretty picture in his head when he imagines Steve pressed up against him, lips working at his neck. Finally Steve starts to shift, his large body spreading out more comfortably on top of Tony’s. Steve must not trust him yet, not that Tony disagrees. He responds by pressing his ass into Steve’s hardened cock, whining. 

“Tell me to fuck you. Tell me where you want me.” Steve is running his hands over Tony, his ass, thighs, back. Wherever the man can reach as he has Tony pinned to the bed. It’s compulsive, reverent with need. Now, it doesn’t seem like so much of a battle over Tony’s body, but a protracted siege. 

Tony twists around as best he can, extending his neck for more of Steve’s ministrations. Steve obliges, now moving towards Tony’s glands, gently suckling the skin in a way that draws arousal from deep in his belly, preparing him for Steve. 

Heat covers him like a veil now, making him languid and easy. Slick leaks out, and Steve’s breath stutters as he scents it before the Alpha goes back to mouthing Tony’s neck like he can’t get enough contact. Tony is filthy wet there with Steve’s saliva, and it feels so right, he begins to cant his hips up, trying to push Steve’s hard cock into the crevice where the warmth from his hole radiates against Steve. 

He feels fevered, and for a moment, he’s back in the cave in Afghanistan. It washes over him, silencing his internal needs like pouring tar onto a machine. 

“Tony, Tony it’s ok, I’ve got you. I have you sweetheart. Going to make you mine. Be a good boy for me, relax, let it go. You’re here.” And it works. Like nothing but JARVIS telling him where he is and the date and time has ever worked. The panic subsides, Steve running his hands up and down Tony’s arms and shoulders, calming and soothing. 

He’s anything but angry about it. Shouldn’t he be angry? He can’t think anymore. Groaning, he presses back again against Steve. The Alpha unhooks his legs from Tony’s, and kneels back. Tony twists his head around to get a better look and almost whines again with how lovely the Captain looks like this. 

Steve’s hair is mussed, his lips a glossy red with spit and use, pupils blown wide. The blue is still there, the sun from the window sliding behind his eyes, making them look lit from within. Steve shrugs off his t-shirt then, and unbuckles his pants faster than Tony can register that it’s happening. 

The Captain’s underwear is tight around his massive length and girth, and see-through wet. Tony doesn’t think it’s going to fit. It can’t fit. It doesn’t matter that he was biologically made to accommodate the size. But he realizes he feels so empty. So bereft of something critical that will make him whole. He hopes it’s Steve. 

When the Captain is down to just his briefs, he palms the bulge of his cock, lightly gripping it as he watches Tony from underneath his lashes. 

It’s then that Tony realizes he’s in the lordosis pose. Somewhere along the line, his knees had come up, hips tilted to present to Steve. He wonders if he’s soaked through his jeans. He hopes he has, and that Steve can smell it on him, how much he wants the Alpha. How good he’ll be for him. 

He’s going to be so good. 

When Steve reaches around to unbutton him from his pants, he brushes the tip of Tony’s cock, and Tony lets out a soft cry, his whole being a greedy mess, needing and needing. Everything focuses to where Steve’s fingers glance at his flesh, each touch a prickling shock of arousal. More slick gushes out of him. He’s ready, ready, ready. And here Steve is taking his time. Doesn’t he want Tony? What if he doesn’t. He’s got to be better. He will be. 

“Please Alpha? Need you.” Tony’s heat is eating him alive, hot coils of lust encircling his mind, trapping him. Pleasure was just beyond it, waiting in Steve’s arms. He needed closer, _in_. He wants Steve to wrap around him, assuage the embers of him before he scorches. Is it possible to get close enough? Tony would try. 

“Shh, darling, I’ve got you.” Tony is free of his jeans now, his boxers with them, and when the cold air hits his hole, he knows he’s gaping and leaking everywhere. Does Steve like the way he looks? Does he want him? 

“I’ll be so good, please—”

“You are so good, so beautiful. Look at you. How much you want this. How I want to give it to you. Tell me you want me to fuck you. Say it.” Steve’s hand rests on Tony’s ass, his thumb underneath a cheek, kneading into the slick-soaked skin there. Tony watches as he draws his hand away and sucks his thumb into his mouth. The thought of Steve tasting him, wanting him, makes him beg. 

“Steve, please fuck me, please.” And Steve is on him, rewarding him, fingers finding the space between his crack, fingers seeking out the heated channel of his body. 

“Love to hear you beg for it. Omega.” He whispers against Tony’s spine, fingers scissoring into Tony, who can feel how sloppy-loose he is. Tony doesn’t need Steve’s fingers. He wants Steve to impale him on his cock already, and proceeds to keen again, high and needy. 

Steve shuffles his body around Tony, his pectorals pressed so pleasingly against his back. He’s floating, warm. Inside him, something like an orgasm builds, responding to the delicate thrusts of Steve’s digits. He’s making noises he’s never heard come out of his mouth before. When Steve reaches to touch Tony’s cock with his other hand, he almost cums right there. 

He pushes his hips back to meet Steve’s thrusts, whimpering and crying, unabashed. A single twirl around the length of his cock, and he implodes. Hot, white-out pleasure races from the tip of his head down to the base of his scrotum, tightening up into his ass as it spasms around Steve’s hands. Cum shoots out of his jerking cock in fine, thready ropes that paint his belly and the bed below. 

Tony feels wrecked. Ruined for any other sex or orgasms. He’d never cum so hard from tip to base in his life. No toy or other human being had given him such intensity. He wants to keep Steve forever. 

Steve hums, a pleased sound behind him. Tony registers that he must have said that out loud. 

The fingers withdraw with a slight squelch, which under any other circumstance would have humiliated Tony, but instead the lurid sound inspired him to think about what Steve would sound like, going in and out of him at a hard, bruising pace. 

“Captain—” Steve pulls out and settles behind Tony, lean legs smearing into the slick that covers Tony’s thighs. He lines up his cock, meticulous. Presses the head in to dip at Tony’s lush entrance. 

“Say my name, Tony.” 

“Steve!” He gasps as Steve breaches him, pulling out of his shallow thrust before pressing back in. His tempo is off, but starts to steady into languorous fucking. Steve fucks him deep and hard, his balls and thighs against Tony’s. He fucks Tony until he’s moved inches up on the bed from the power of it. And then he fucks harder, hips pistoning into Tony, Steve’s hands upon his bare hips as he laves at Tony’s neck. 

“Such a good boy. So pleasing, sweet for me.” Steve is gutting him with rough, deep strokes. It rocks him, his mind as pressed as the pressure inside of him. This was like nothing he’d ever thought, or believed could happen. The pleasure was a peek he was falling over again and again. 

Tony hadn’t known. Hadn’t realized. There was a level of knowledge, of the universe itself, that he’d been running from. Tony Stark was a coward; Captain America was right. Because this was bliss—completion. He knew now, and he could never unknow. No matter that serum that would make him forget, his sinew would twist and turn with this truth forever. 

Steve’s fat Alpha knot was puffing in preparation now and Steve’s thighs started to tremble. Tony knows what’s about to happen. He feels his channel like a furnace, gripping Steve’s cock like it was meant to be filled all the time. 

By now, Tony is bowed down, his stomach pressed to his knees, and his face so close to Steve’s. Steve thrusts harder, deeper, and then leans all the way down over Tony’s back to capture Tony’s groaning mouth into a ferocious kiss. Their teeth clack as Steve stutters, gracelessly pushing into Tony, once, twice, desperate for his own completion. 

And when he reaches it, he grips Tony hard, slamming his cock in as deep as he can before he starts cumming. Steve’s cock shudders and jolts through Tony, undulating as spurts of hot semen fill him full to bursting. Over and over again he feels the sweet heat of Steve’s spend in his very veins, and just as he thinks he’s filled up, he feels the knot seal him in. Whimpering, it stretches him in the way Alpha toys never could, until Steve’s cock must be swimming in the hot liquid inside Tony. 

“Tony, you’re mine now. Now and all of your heats after, you’re mine. My Omega. Mine.” 

“Yours, Steve, fucking yours.” At that, Steve collapses on Tony, and Steve rolls them over, carefully arranging Tony in front of him.

“Was it good for you?” Steve whispers quietly into Tony’s hair. 

“Yes, it was good.” Tony’s tongue is thick, his mouth dry from drooling and moaning. At his acknowledgement, he feels a tug on his hair lazily pulling his head to the side and away from the bed, giving Steve the leverage he needs to lean over once more and kiss him. Steve’s soft lips crash into his, pressing his mouth open for hot, lapping kisses. Steve’s cock spasms again in tandem, and Tony can feel that this time, a little leaks out as Steve’s knot is no longer as tight as it was when he first came. And Steve, in rapturous possessiveness, reaches down to scoop what cum has left Tony’s ass, and proceeds to rub it on Tony’s glands as he continues latching onto his mouth. 

“What happens after this?” Steve is languid as Tony asks his question, his furnace of a body behind Tony, encapsulating him. 

“What do you want to happen?” Steve is still stroking cum onto Tony, dominating and admittedly arousing. Maybe just for this moment, Tony belongs to Steve. Wholly to him and them, and the joined flesh between them. Tony imagines walking out of here, hand in hand with Steve, the man smiling down at him with that beaming grin he gives Tony so infrequently. The one he’s free in giving to others, that he’ll now share with Tony.

It’s his heat speaking to him. The clarity of his and Steve’s orgasm begins to defog him, and he remembers what he is. 

Tony is a disappointment. He knows that. He won’t obey on the field even if he will kowtow here. Steve will come to resent him even more than he does now. Steve is the opposite of Tony in all ways. Introverted where Tony craves attention. Logical where Tony is abstract. A man who follows his heart, and not his head. And whereas Cap is rigid in his ideals, Tony sees a world without rules. How do two people who are so disparate, staring across a chasm, come together? 

They don’t. They haven’t before, and they won’t now. 

“I want to forget.” 

\--

Steve has been solicitous. An endless stream of protein bars have been held to Tony’s mouth while Tony sat in Steve’s lap, pinioned by Steve’s knot. The wrappers line the floor along with the empty water bottles. 

Steve watches Tony’s mouth work over his food, eyes locked onto Tony’s face and throat as he chews and swallows. It’s a tender amount of care that Tony has never in his life received. The earnest way he rubs his thumb in a circle on Tony’s thigh as he holds another bite up for Tony drives him into docility. He’s so good in these moments, for Steve. And Steve tells him so, whispering endearments about how good Tony takes all of it, and how Steve is going to take care of him. Tony almost believes it, it’s so real.

Steve also bathed him while Tony had a small window of awareness before his heat came and sucked all of it away again. 

Tony remembers the feel of the cloth down his back, his chest, and most especially the gentle swipes at his wet and gaping hole. Dollops of cum seeped out of him in the water, the trail of white dispersed by Steve’s dip of his hands into the tub. Another way of claiming, as Steve gently kissed him. Breathless, open-mouthed kisses, with Steve’s hot tongue swirling around his own, licking at his teeth and gums. 

Steve now suckles at Tony’s softening cock, seemingly content to let it roll on his tongue, seeking out the ridge of his head and the slit at the top. He’s licking the heat away, which sits in the peripheral of Tony’s consciousness, waiting for the next wave to ride in and seize him up in feral need. The only thing—the only thing keeping it back is the obscene suction of Steve’s lips and mouth. It hollows him out, sends everything that’s left of him down to a single point of contact. His worse nature being pulled in, lulled, and placated. Tony hates that this is the only time he can think, and even still, his face scrunched in pleasure, tears at the corners of his eyes as he cries and whines for Steve. 

And what does he choose to think about? Steve, and how instinct is cruel to give him this in a way that makes a mockery of what he wanted. Steve is here because of Fury and his rut. He’s kind because Steve is always kind, except when Tony is unkind first. And he is always unkind, nowadays. But even when control is something that should be lost, Steve finds it in himself. Not like Tony, who can’t stop thinking about what it might be like, if it wasn’t just for his heat. And when it is his heat, he knows that Steve is his whole world, a warm and tender one where Steve soothes the savage energy that lives inside Tony. The thing that makes him create, destroy, self-immolate, and rise again. Steve makes that part of him pause, a reprieve from his very nature. 

Tony can’t stop insulting Steve, because if he does, he’ll do more than obey. He’ll be whatever is closest to happy. 

“Want to see you cry, baby. Come for me?” Tony’s so sensitive, each time he cums, tears streak down his face. Steve likes to lap at them when he’s knotted inside Tony, and it feels like everything he is is being consumed. Steve sucks hard at his cock now, and presses his fingers into Tony, the squelching indecently loud. 

His orgasm hits him like waves crashing again and again, roiling forward and back out to sea. Tony is lost there, and he’s as found as he can be while he’s with Steve. And Steve, amazing, devoted Steve, drinks all there is from Tony’s deflating cock, licks his fingers that were inside Tony as he stalks up on all fours to give him a searing kiss. 

He thinks that maybe he could live for this, to be this, for Steve. 

\--

Steve is radiant above him, his arms pinning Tony back, triceps and pectorals in light-contrasted definition. Tony can swear his skin glows from within, the pale planes of it smooth and perfect. 

Steve eclipses everything, blotting out the petty insults, the fears Tony had regarding Alphas. Steve subsumes it all, curling Tony’s negative feelings in on themselves until they’re only a writhing mass of pleasure that Tony feels burgeoning underneath his skin. He has a moment of despair before the heat takes him, and he _writhes_ under Steve, canting his hips up against the Alpha. 

Steve’s eyes turn hooded, eyelashes fluttering over his now darkened eyes. 

“No one has ever diminished you, have they? They’ve tried. I tried. But nothing makes you shine less than you do.” 

“Steve, I can’t— I can’t wait. Need—”

He’s shushed with a kiss, Steve working his lips over Tony’s, kissing corner to corner before licking into the press of his mouth. Tony opens easily under him, his tongue coupling with Steve’s. They press into each other, teasing and testing, before Tony has to turn his head to the side to gasp. 

Steve takes the opportunity to suck at his neck before soothing it with a soft lick. Like a bloodhound, he goes straight for Tony’s glands, lapping at the scent producing organ where a mating bite would penetrate. 

“You taste so good. Perfect Omega, going to take care of you.” Steve whispers against his neck. Tony has never been so thrilled to be called Omega in his life. It would be lovely to hate it, to despise that Steve is here only because he needs to save Tony, to preserve the balance of the Avengers, and the world. He wasn’t entirely full of himself, but he understood that a Tony Stark sized hole would be impossible to fill. So maybe he was the person Black Widow said he was. 

But maybe he wasn’t those things. Perhaps he was exactly what Steve said. Steve, who couldn’t lie, or misrepresent the truth. Steve said he was good, and sweet. And Tony thought, well, he thought maybe Steve meant it. 

Gently, eyes glassy with pleasure, Steve turns him over so that his distended belly is pressed into his nest. He’s full. So full. 

When Steve slides in, someone, possibly him, lets out a low, keening whine. He can’t think anymore, Steve’s cock a brand inside his used body. It burns satisfyingly as it stretches him, and Steve all but croons at Tony when he finally hilts himself inside. 

“Take all of it sweetheart, that’s good, so good of you.”

Steve’s a god behind him now, pummeling his thoughts away with each thrust. The slick, whole-slide of his cock is vibrating the barriers of Tony’s sense of self, knocking on his body to open, open, open. He can hear his own breathy sighs as Steve sets a punishing pace. The squelch of his channel as Steve shoves himself in is obscene. 

It’s then that Steve grabs his shoulder with a hand, hauling him back to press Tony’s back to his chest, the other hand a perfect slot into the juncture of his leg and hip, pulling tight. The thrusts are short, shocking, no less re-making than they were before, and Steve uses the opportunity to tell him so. 

“Gonna to make you into something else, gonna make you this, just this, for me. Want to fill you up, make you complete and mine.” 

“Steve—ah—gonna, I’m gonna come on your cock, please— please, _please_!” It’s warm inside of him, hot, burning. Deep in his core, he’s being stretched, warped. Pressure has been building, like a flood against a dam, and he’s tight with anticipation for it. Finally, finally, it releases, sweeping him in a torrential haze, so strong it makes him spasm and twitch, arching his back towards Steve. 

He contracts rhythmically, his pelvic muscles massaging his Alpha’s cock in an attempt to squeeze every bit of spend from him. And Steve, Steve rewards him with a feral groan that comes out like a growl, cock exploding in hot streams of come, painting Tony’s insides. 

He lets Tony drop, gravity working to push semen up where it will settle pleasingly in his ass.

Tony is rooted now, his mind planted firmly in the present moment where all he feels, all he is, is Steve’s. The thrum of his pulse roars through his ears, his senses dulled by the single focal point of the knot that is already inflating inside of him. It grows with each aborted thrust, each steady pump of cum. 

The slow expansion of his channel is bliss, and he orgasms again, his own cock releasing smaller amounts of cum than before. Soon, he’ll be milked dry. 

\--

The heat lasts for days. Longer, far longer than a normal heat. Tony has a lot of catch up to do with his body. Tony is propped up by pillows from his nest, his body in perfect lordosis. Steve perches on the bed behind him, one knee sunk into the mattress, pulling Tony to the side. He rights Tony, a hand moving his leg up to compensate.

He should have been embarrassed, his slick hole exposed to Steve’s purview, leaking cock red and used against the pillows underneath him. But he’s presented so many times now that there’s no point in shame. Steve seems to enjoy it; he likes to spread Tony sometimes and watch his cock sink in and out of Tony’s sopping heat. 

Some Alphas avoided an Omega’s cock, but not Steve. Many of the times Steve had mounted him, he’d reach down, fingers twining around Tony. His resulting orgasm would reverberate, from his clenching hole to base to the head of his dick.

“You’re beautiful like this, slick and ready for me. Are you ready Tony? Say it for me.” Steve’s hand slid down Tony’s ass, fingers first, cupping his hole with the calloused heel of Steve’s palm before sliding down to ensconce his balls in his hand while his fingers gently squeeze at Tony’s cock. Steve kneels behind him, tightly coiled power. Steve’s hands are all over him, moving and pressing, horrible and wonderful. 

“Steve— Alpha, please, yes, ready, ready, so ready.” Tony mumbles his consent, his mind in torpor while his skin sings for Steve’s touch. Steve lays a steadying hand on his ass, thumb spreading his already wide-open hole, before dipping the head of his cock into Tony’s ass, clipping the rim with the ridge of his cock. 

Steve has already been in him so many times, but he treats each time as though it was the first, teasing and stroking, drowning Tony in sensation. He feels each touch more keenly than the last, the slide of Steve’s cock against the seam of him an unhinging of his person. 

When at least, Steve loses his iron control, he sinks home into Tony’s greedy ass, eliciting a groan from Steve and the barest of whimpers from Tony. Steve snaps his hips, once, and slowly withdraws to snap them again, and Tony’s heat croons, dark and sweet, that this is the way of things. His base, Omegan desires, Steve’s cock rutted into him, a hole to be used, a womb to be bred. 

Tony cries, tears leaking from his eyes, when Steve reaches down to pluck at the head of his cock, his slick having dripped down to coat him entirely. Steve twists at his cock, hips a rhythmic plunge into Tony’s depths. 

“Tony— ah god, so beautiful when you cry for me, so good. Gonna fill you up sweetheart—” Steve is barraging him now, the V-line of his groin slotted perfectly between Tony’s slick-soaked crevice. He can feel the powerful muscles behind him, working in a staccato on Tony. 

“Please Steve, I’m begging, want you, so perfect in me, need you—” He can feel the slush of cum inside him, his belly distended and biology designed to perfectly keep in an Alpha’s spend to ensure fertilization. 

He’s going to add more. 

He wants to have more. 

Steve has him close to the precipice now, the only reason he hasn’t come sooner being that he’s already given it up to Steve several times now. It’ll be a nice, tight, dry orgasm, all of his cum already wrung out of him by Steve. Some of which the man had swallowed earlier, when Tony’s ass hadn’t been as needy.

Steve’s thrusts stutter, his knot pre-filling in anticipation. It’s a slow drag on his soft and bruised entrance, bruises he won’t feel until his heat is over, but the tenderness is a lovely counterpoint to the fat bulge of the knot. Tony’s desperate now, his hands fisted in the cum-stiff bedding, his mouth pressed open, drool unspoiling from underneath his tongue. 

“Tell me you want it Tony, I need—” 

“Steve, yes, I want it, I want you—” That does it for Steve, and he’s coming, the first volley squishing out of him, knot so thick that it all but pops back inside Tony before they’re locked together, the slow but methodical pump of Steve’s cock undulant inside his hyper sensitive channel. Steve collapses over him, wet chest pressing into his back. He kisses the back of Tony’s neck, his spine, licking a fine stripe of sweat off Tony. 

The endearments start then, how sweet he was, how good, how _Omega,_ , and Tony wants so badly to hate hearing it. To be rewarded for being Omega, the very thing he’d tried to avoid. But with Steve so close, so _adoring_ , he’s lost to the feeling of being cherished. 

Soon, Steve rolls them, Tony a preciously cupped thing between Steve’s legs, spooned against the warmth of his body. Steve reverently runs his hands along Tony’s flanks, fingers tracing aimless patterns up and down. 

“At first I thought you were the kind of fella that was aimless, selfish. Given all these things and doing nothing with all of it.” 

“And now?”

“Now, I think you could take over the world, and it might not be such a bad thing.” 

“If I really was narcissistic enough to try and take over the world, I’d leave some plausible deniability in there Stevie.” 

“No doubt. But you’re not really narcissistic are you?” 

“Black Widow thinks so, which means Fury thinks so.” 

“And they’re wrong. I’ll make sure they know they’re wrong.” 

“You don’t have to take care of me. I pay people for that.” 

“Hmm.” Steve tilts Tony’s head back and to the side, kissing him like sips from a glass. Slow and honeyed. 

\--

The heat is dying down, and with it Steve’s rut. Steve is petting him, and it feels so good, so very good, that Tony starts to hate it. It’s slow at first, the roiling anger that follows every time Steve’s hands glide down Tony’s skin, but it begins to lap at his conscious mind.

He doesn’t need _gentling_. Doesn’t need the aftercare associated with heats. He’s Tony Stark, and he’s never needed anything that he can’t get for himself. 

He rolls away from Steve, facing the man from his side of the bed. 

“This is just animalistic need. That’s all this is and it ever was.” The words are out before he can stop them, crisp and cutting. He doesn’t regret saying it. He doesn’t. 

“Is that so?” It doesn’t come out sounding like a question. Steve is inscrutable, his body painted with sweat and slick, muscles in stark relief from dehydration, as beautiful as Tony has ever seen him, achingly so. 

“It is.” He bites the words out at Steve, daring, testing. 

“Then if that’s the case, I’m going to rut you like an animal.” Before he can blink, Steve is on him, arranging his body into lordosis, using his super strength to flip Tony right around and prop him ass-upward. Steve’s display makes his already full stomach swirl with anticipation, something like terror, and guilt. Steve wants to take it slow, to _pretend_ that it means something. 

But Tony isn’t going to let him forget what they’re here for, even if it feels like breaking apart. 

It’ll all be over soon. He’ll forget this whole mess, erase it from JARVIS’s servers, _protect himself_ from what he’s done. It’s almost unforgivable but for the fact he’s done it before with perfect strangers. Let himself use and be used in turn. But this is Captain America, Steve Rogers who is now pounding in and out of him with a fury that encapsulates his designation, Alpha. It renders him inarticulate with feeling. 

Tony can hear a high pitched, long whine. It’s him, he knows it’s him, and he bites down on the words that want to come streaming out of his mouth. He’s given enough of his shame to Steve that he refuses to give one more inch over to the man. Steve is hunched over him now, teeth to Tony’s skin, so close to his glands, a fierce ache settling into his used body that zings up from his ass to his neck. 

He’s Tony Stark, the man, he reminds himself. Not the Omega. He’s not an animal. This was a mistake. Steve doesn’t want him; he wants what any Alpha wants and will do anything to attain. An Omega fuck. This is not for keeps. Nothing in this world is. No matter what Steve has said, has promised. 

His focus narrows, and he concentrates on making his orgasm small, to not give the Alpha the satisfaction of the rippling contractions of his channel. Hold out as much of himself as he can. _Prove_ he’s not his baser urges alone. 

Steve’s pace stutters, once, twice, and then he’s knotting Tony, the sore give of him opening for Steve, allowing the man to bind them in flesh. It still feels like the first time. Like the last time. Steve’s forehead is pressed to Tony’s back as the Alpha lets each of their orgasms wash over them with reckless abandon, groaning into Tony’s skin. A loss of control that Tony doesn’t want to touch again. He is _human_. This isn’t meant for him. He’s above this. 

“Forgive me, I’m selfish. I want you to be mine, Omega.” Steve mumbles into Tony’s spine. _Omega_. It rings through his skull, bounces off his heart, reverberates until the ripples become sorrow, and sorrow becomes indignation, and then, rage. 

“I’m not your Omega. And I’ll never forgive you because there will be nothing to forgive in a few hours.” 

“I think it matters now, Tony.” Steve’s voice was brittle, like spun glass, sharp and ready to shatter. 

“I’ll never forgive you then.” The words feel like fire, destruction. He’s severing the line between them, as sure-sounding as he was when he told the world that SI would no longer produce weapons. If only he could claim that his whole self agreed. The Omega in him was screaming, thrashing with hurt and want. Tony slammed that part of him down, buried it with a litany of facts that didn’t include his life choices being dictated by instincts. This part of him wasn’t him. It was a burden. A cruel and inscrutable burden from nature itself. 

Steve sucks in a breath, his knot already deflating. He pulls it out then, not quite easy on Tony’s passage, the sting of stretching an echo of the pain seizing his chest. He’s just said no to Steve. To a chance at something more. He could ask himself why he was always ruining the things he loves—loved, but the reasons were transparent. Tony didn’t deserve this. He didn’t deserve to be just an Omega, but even if he was Tony, just Tony, to Steve, he didn’t think he deserved whatever kindness Steve had to offer. 

He remembers Steve’s face after he fell from the sky, the sudden interest. The way Steve had stared at him across the table during their shawarma. 

Tony was a liar. He hid his identity. And Tony had killed people, with his negligence. He didn’t listen. Cap didn’t even _like_ Tony. He liked fucking Tony, and long ago that would have been enough. He wants and loathes what he wants until it’s a tangled web of self-hatred that makes him want to snap, to come apart at the seams and not be put back together. 

“I’ll be seeing you, Tony.” Steve is shuffling, the tell-tale sound of pants going up legs, a zipper, and then the stretch of arms as a shirt goes over his head. Tony can’t watch. He can’t watch his Alpha walk away or it will break him. He’ll beg. He knows he would. 

“Don’t bother mentioning it.” 

\--

Tony is left alone in the room. There’s trash everywhere, sheets and pillows ripped and empty water bottles loitering by the bedside on the table and floor. 

He clenches and unclenches his hands. Steve is still somewhere in the building. He could go get him. He could run out and find his Alpha, tell him he didn’t mean it. 

Maybe Steve will come back. He said he wanted Tony. 

Tony knows why he feels so insecure now that the Alpha is out of sight. It’s natural. It’s instinct. It’s biology. It’s also not Tony, he reminds himself. Tony doesn’t care what other people think of him, and if Steve categorically agrees that he wants to forget it too, well, then that’s what they’re doing. 

“JARVIS, delete project Alpha. Super-duper-serial delete it.” 

“Sir, are you sure?” 

“J, I’ve never been so sure. I need this _gone_.” Steve isn’t coming back. The truth is written on his skin; he has all of the lust and need for an Omega painted on him. Bites at his neck, a bruising ache in his glands from how often Steve had sucked on them. But it’s over now, and Steve isn’t here. Tony wants to cry. He hasn’t truly cried in so long. Not since leaving Afghanistan. He doesn’t count the endless tears that Steve had twisted from him. They don’t mean a thing. 

The suppressants help keep him stable, but without them, his eyes blur with emotion, and the tight little feeling behind his nose makes his eyes wet. He tries to catch it, but the tears slip past his fingers.

There’s no one here to see. Not Steve, or SHIELD. Even JARVIS doesn’t have eyes here. 

So he lets it out, his face twisting and crumpling up, his lips pinched with grief over his life, his lack of choices, over every hard thing he’s ever had to endure or overcome. Images of Pepper, Obie, Rhodey, his father float up as he closes his eyes against reality. And lastly, comes Steve. The man who tentatively walked into this room and gave Tony objectively the best sex of his life. Steve broke him into caring, into wanting. 

How fair was it that something that meant so much to him was just another Omega for Steve? He’s probably one Omega in a line of them who have been serviced by the man. Steve was only saying what his idiot Omega side wanted to hear. That he was wanted, unique, adored. That he was accepted. 

Tony is none of those things. Pepper is and was right to reject him. He’s never had a chance with Steve, and he has to remember, to keep it in mind always, that he never wanted an Alpha either. He’s never wanted the weight of an immutable bond. There was never going to be a time when he didn’t carry the burden of not belonging. Tony lives on the outside of the world, building things for inside of it, his very own dollhouse that he can’t shrink his ego enough to play in. 

He can’t even resent Steve’s happiness, the man’s ability to live the life he wants on his terms, with simplicity and grace. No, if he can give Steve anything at all, any gift, it’s his silence, his ability to abort any attempt at his unknowledgeable future self at figuring it out. He knows he’s going to hate himself. Resent the implication that something went wrong. 

But this is for the best. 

It’s with that, that Tony begins to scrub Steve off of him, a ritual in preparation for removing Steve from his soul. 

He pulls Steve out from under his nails, saying goodbye to the intensity and passion which he inflicted on the other man. He scrubs Steve from his glands, flushing his ignorant body’s hopes of anything that looks like permanency. He uses a chemical agent to dissolve his mucosal plug, letting all of what Steve put in his womb slough down his legs and into the drain, where dreams of children and white picket fences go to die. 

Soon he stands in front of the mirror, the marks on his skin alien without the scent of Alpha on him. He’s already thinking that the Alpha was just something that happened to him, like a car accident, or a plane crash. You get up, you recover, you move on. 

“JARVIS, run a scan, see if you can see any foreign DNA floating around.” 

“While I can’t see inside your body sir, your outside is clear. The soap is caustic to biological material. You may experience a rash on parts of your body. Estimates on absorption of Omega uteruses give you about an hour before complete absorption of any leftover materials. Though less strict studies have shown up to three hours.” 

“It’ll have to do. Thanks J. If I ask later if there’s any possibility of leftover DNA, lie to me, ok? Now I’ve got a serum to catch.”

“Yes, Sir.” Tony doesn’t ever remember programming JARVIS with disappointment, but that’s what he thinks he hears in his AI’s voice. 

He doesn’t regret his decision. He won’t.  
\--

The Subaru handles the highways well, and he uses it as hard as he uses his sports cars, zipping between cars and hurtling forward at about 90 mph. The sun is out, but since his Subaru is new, there are barely any dust motes to dance in the rays. It’s sterile, lonely. 

“J, you’re sure you can’t test the DNA?”

“No sir, I’m unable to do so.” 

“Unable to comply, or do it at all.” JARVIS is silent, and Tony’s nervousness upticks. 

The bandage on his arm is miniscule, and he resents the implication that something so small, an insignificant needle, can upend his plans to find out exactly who he spent his time with. He doesn’t remember driving to the building. Or even leaving his lab. The heat he expected, but the unintended side effects are that his memory from the weeks previous are also spotty. He’d known that would be the case, but experiencing it is something else. 

The Alpha, whoever he is, has been wiped from his mind. 

He wonders, somewhere, if he’s made a mistake.

**Author's Note:**

> [My tumblr](https://fundamental-blue.tumblr.com/)


End file.
